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A Day of Blue Skies and Freezing Wind in the Gargano

The Abbey of San Leonardo di Siponto dates from the 1000s and was at one stage home for knights of the Teutonic Order.   The church is now the only functional building amongst the abbey ruins which are now pressed up against  the HGV noisy four lane trunk road which services Manfredonia.  It's only open for mass at 6pm every Sunday, so this is normally as close as you will get to the 1200s carved porch (below)  -  which is a good reason to have a powerful telephoto lens on hand! 

The town of Sipontium had a long and interesting history before it was abandoned in the mid 1250s in favour of Manfredonia when a lot of the lands around it disintegrated into mosquito infested swamps.  Further down the road from the Abbey, a disconsolate coach-load of German tourists wanders in the littered wasteland (which doubles as an archaeological site) outside the impenetrable fencing of the 1100s Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore di Siponta, which was built over a much older church and is closed on Tuesdays. 

Madfredonia is an unattractive traffic jammed dump with a railway line and fenced off rotting industrial buildings where the seafront promenade should be, so we headed up the mountain to the ancient pilgrimage town of Monte Sant'Angelo (894m) - which, from half way up, did not look much different .....

And indeed it wasn't, though it got a bit better as one headed up the hill through the modern mess and the fringe old town and out the other side.  "Not good enough" said a voice ... "your web viewers will be disappointed ... turn around".  And then like magic the walls of the old mountaintop castle presented themselves with a vacant parking spot at their base. 

Outside the car the temperature was 10° - probably closer to zero taking the monte's famous freezing wind chill into account.  The Dom hesitated, not having any idea what he was looking for, and not being dressed for a ski slope  ....

"On on" the voice (which the Dom now thinks was S Michael hisself) said, and there, just round a  corner at the end of the wall, was the entrance (right) to the stairways which he discovered (with no signage help) descend to the grotto which is linked to several appearances by the Archangel Michael, and which has been a major pilgrim destination for a long long time.

The grotto (below) is indeed a most beautiful and evocative space, so the Dom stayed for a very engaging mass, following quite literally in the steps of Saints Francis, Bernard and Anselm, assorted Kings, Queens, Emperors and Popes, and thousands of pilgrims over the past 1500 years.  And then he discovered a fantastic coffee table book with outstanding photos of the many iconic representations of the warrior Archangel to be found in the cave complex - happiness.

On down the other side of the mountain and along the valley road (aka la Via Sacra Langobardorum) is San Giovanni Rotondo - once owned by one of the Plantagenet kids (Joan).  The church of Sant'Onofrio (left) dates from the 1300s (after Joan, who dates from the late 1100s), and was closed for lunch.

The reason why many people know San Giovanni Rotondo, and indeed why it is on the tourist map at all, is Padre Pio (1887 - 1969).  The stigmatized Franciscan friar, beatified in 1999 by Pope John Paul II, is buried in a convent near here, and judging by the huge number of newish hotels strung out along the road, there are a lot of people who visit it.

On on, through and out of the several kilometre (seriously) hotel strip, we managed to find another excellent lunch spot ... seafood di golfo today, advised by the effervescent Ylemie, one of the family running La Taverna dei Briganti, near San Marco in Lamis.

And so, back west in the evening sun, past the walls which are all that remain of what was the biggest of Frederick's castles, to our hotel at the base of the other side of hill - the Hotel Sorriso in via Rafaello, Lucera, proudly lit up with a huge neon  "Ristorante" sign even though there is no evidence that it is ever open - and tonight, as an extra bonus for their two guests, the hot water isn't either.   Still, Lucera is a good geographic location for N Puglia, and at least we avoided nearby Foggia - recently measured as the most congested town in Italy. 

Actually, back in Frederick's day Lucera was known as Luceria Saracenorum because it eventually became a full blown Moslem town of 50,000 plus people as a result of him deporting Saracens from Sicily and dumping them here.  The Moslem enclave thrived  for a few hundred years, but eventually Charles II d'Anjou subjected the place to extreme ethnic cleansing.

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