We decided to visit Martina Franca – a nearby town – specifically because we’d heard about an antique street fair street fair from the owner of the bed-and-breakfast. We had rented a car so we could venture out easily to the many small towns and cities in the Puglia area and this turned out to be a wise move. My brother, Noah, was inspired to retry his skill at driving a stick shift, and I ended up being the designated navigator for the trip. We were a great duo! Italians tend to be assertive drivers (read that as aggressive!) when passing slower cars and narrow country roads were a challenge when we had a face-off with an oncoming car or truck. Noah finessed this well, but I have to admit there were a few heart-stopping moments when it felt like we were playing “chicken”.
It turned out that there was indeed a street fair in Martina Franca that we wandered through where every type of produce and merchandise was being sold. If you needed bolts of fabric, underwear, hats, you name it, this would have been the place to be. That really wasn’t what we were looking for. The older Central part of the city had some lovely plazas, and we ended up having a quiet lunch in one of them.
We had tried to find the antique mart, but it wasn’t at the address that we found on the Internet, but luck would have it. We found a big banner on one of the streets that pointed us to its new location.
Apparently, this fair had outgrown its prior home in a local school and had moved to the outskirts of the city in what looked like a warehouse. Truth be told there was not much to see aside from a few local antique pieces of furniture and home goods. it was not too different from the large consignment stores. We have in the states and likely there will be more merchants, displaying as more people find out about this regular event.
We decided to have dinner at a restaurant in Putignano (Mirum) that had been recommended by our hostess. The food was fine, but the real highlight was getting to know our server who was also a wine connoisseur. He made sure we were at a quiet table inside and decided that an impromptu wine tasting would be a good idea. We did enjoy trying a few local wines, but in the end, it was clear that as sweet a guy as he was, he really wanted to sell us some of the wines we tasted. they were good, but not good enough to bear the shipping costs! to be honest, I think Dalia and I were quite smitten with this very good-looking Italian man, which made us a bit more gullible.
Living La Vida Loca 