Monday 20th May 2019

Today we moved on again, to the coast of the Adriatic Sea. We wished to visit Matera and a few other villages in the Puglia area so we picked a site that would serve as a base for that. Of the Camping Card accepting sites in the area Camping Pineta al Mare had the best reviews so we headed here.

Towing Kilometres – Today: 380 Cumulative: 31,298

Wanting to time our departure from Camping Sant’Antonio to avoid meeting the bus on the winding road out of Marina Di Equa we were up early and ready to roll by 09:30.

We have enjoyed staying here, as said before, the place just feels right. There are a variety of bars and restaurants on the doorstep, all with nice views, and everyone is friendly. We intended staying 4 to 8 nights and ended up staying 15!

Just before leaving we stopped off at reception to settle our bill and say our goodbyes. We were told not to leave yet and a minute or two later, the owner, Giovanni, came back with a large bag of lemons for us, all grown on the trees under which we had camped 🙂

Giovanni & his wife have both been kind, helpful, and friendly for our entire time here and make the stay as pleasant as possible.

The plan to avoid the bus worked well and we were soon up on the main road where we joined a long line of slow moving traffic which continued all the way until we joined the autoroute. We had decided to use the motorway as much as possible today as the route was nearly 400km and a lot of the local roads around here are very narrow. This decision cost us around €30 in tolls but we both consider it money well spent.

Once on the A1 motorway the heavens opened and this continued pretty much for the next hour. The skies then cleared and we were motoring between picturesque fields and hilltop villages in sunny blue skies and our spirits were raised as we approached Puglia.

Then we started to notice the ominous looming storm ahead!

This was possibly the worst storm we had driven through all trip.

The thought of setting up the caravan in such conditions was not appealing at all but fortunately we drove out of the storm and arrived on site in pleasant weather again.

Reception was closed when we arrived but a young lady turned up soon after and instructed us to choose a pitch and return later.

Seconds after we had erected the canopy, the storm caught up with us again 🙂

Initial impressions of the site are good. The facilities are fine, there is a wonderful pool, a restaurant, and a bar all on site. The pitches are separated by tall hedges, and not all are big enough for long caravans. There is off pitch parking available nearby.

It should serve us well while we investigate Puglia 🙂