Buying a little abandoned house in the south of Italy in Puglia

 Buying a little abandoned house in the south of Italy in Puglia and doing it up to spend summer holidays in.

Life here is simple and like stepping back in time. Every morning in the town square just 100 meters from the old part of town where no cars pass where the house is situated, there is a morning market with fresh fruit and veggies grown locally by farmer families. There is fresh pugliese bread, tasty cheese and olives, homemade wine and in the local shops there is anything else you may need.

It is so great to be able live for days without using the car and to get to know the local people who come even year on holidays with their young families to enjoy this area so close to the beach and the beautiful Gargano National Park. Most of the year long residents were born in the very house they still live in after 90 years. Due to the simple and natural life most residents live a very long life here living in their own homes and being looked after by family living in the house next door or in the nearby neighbourhood.

Many men and women sit outside in the morning shade chatting with neighbours, women are inside conserving tomatoes in jars for the winter, making grape jam, preparing the fresh pasta famous from this area “ orecchiette -little ears", children play freely in the cobble stone streets but everyone knows when its nearly lunch time by the wafts of delicious pasta sauce emanating through the lace curtains of the doors from mamma’s kitchen.

When it is lunch time and for a few hours afterwards while everyone digests their delicious hot lunch, not a spoiled is seen on the hot midday streets. In fact even the shops and businesses close from 1 til 5:30 pm, honouring the siesta time. Then life starts again when the streets begin to cool, the children come out to play, the elderly come back out for the cool breeze and people dress nicely for a walk down the mainstream with a gelato or to eat out.

The weather on summer nights is so nice and there’s so much happening, so much gossip to catch up in the small town, that people don’t eat til 9 or 10pm and don’t seem to go to bed til around midnight.

We’re loving it here and hope to come each year to have our little dose of the slow life and slow food movement that is still so strong here.