Monopoli

with an i (and a writing prompt)

Jun 23, 2025

Travel. An eye-opener, a reset, and a shift in perspectives. All that seemed so urgent on home turf does just fine without you. There you are, surrounded by sights, sounds, and smells you’d only read about, drinking it all in and letting it expand you, nourish you, and change you, even if just a little bit.

Next stop - Monopoli. From the relatively sleepy small city of Molfetta, we arrived a few train stops away to a thriving, cosmopolitan seaside city teeming with tourists and locals alike. So close and yet so utterly different in energy.

We learned that Roberto, our Airbnb host, is a food blogger with something in the neighbourhood of 30K followers on Instagram. “A little bit famous in Pulgia,” as he modestly put it. His recommendations for where to eat specific things - lunch here, croissants there, pizza there, polpo sandwiches (a Monopoli specialty) there - were spot on. We ate like queens. (Airbnb hosts, for the most part, offer the best recommendations, often the less touristy ones.)

Seafood extravaganza. At nine in the morning and five in the afternoon, the fishing boats dock and sell their catch directly. I know the above isn’t a great picture, but people crowded around the fish and since I wasn’t buying… (I wanted to, though - a huge bag of shrimp was 5 euros, for heaven’s sake!)

Roberto offers food-related tours, so we went to the cheese factory to learn about mozzarella.

Roberto had advised us not to have breakfast that morning, but it’s hard to stay away from fresh croissants. He said, Just coffee. We should have listened - after the tour and trying our hand at making knots from the fresh, slippery, hot cheese, we were served a plateful of about eight cheeses from the region. Esana, bless her, pocketed what we couldn’t eat (really!) so we could enjoy it later with fresh bread and olives.

We then went on a tour of an olive oil processing masseria,* where we were introduced to both traditional and modern methods of oil production. There, we were served a wonderful confection of cherry tomatoes and olive oil. which sounds basic, but it danced on my tongue as oil dripped down my chin.

Olive oil is serious business. Those who have land generally have olive trees, so each household has their own oil—their olives brought to the masseria to be processed.

*A masseria is a fortified farmhouse found on the estates in the Puglia region and typically built in the 16th century. It is a complex of buildings generally running along two sides of a central high-walled courtyard. These buildings include the landowner’s dwelling-house (generally located on the first floor), the farmers’ houses (on the ground floor), the stables, the barns and the tool barns.

From: https://www.masseriapagani.com/en/what-is-a-masseria/

In modern times, the masserie have been repurposed as dairies, olive oil production, and wine making. Many masserie offer luxury tourist accommodations and serve as event venues for weddings and other celebrations.

The surrounding countryside is gorgeous - miles and miles of olive groves, fruit trees, grapevines, rolling hills, and sunshine.

Roberto is charming, fun, informative, passionate about food, and pretty darn cute. Just sayin’. Anyway, it got me thinking about offering a week of food tours, cooking classes, and writing. We spoke at length, and he’s sent me a quote that includes accommodation, many meals (some you have to make yourself under expert supervision, of course), a day at the beach, and a pool party. I’m thinking of offering a week in Puglia with Roberto in the spring of 2027. Let me know if that might be something that interests you, and I’ll send you the details as I figure them out.

The next day, Roberto drove us to a UNESCO World Heritage site. Alberobello. (Try pronouncing that without getting your tongue in a twist!)

“The oldest trulli, which today are found in Alberobello, date back to the end of the 14th century.” “The dry construction method (without mortar) for the trulli was imposed on the new settlers so that the dwellings could be taken apart quickly - a strategic way to avoid taxes on new settlements imposed by the Kingdom of Naples.”

~ Source: https://trulli-invest.com/

The trulli created a sense of otherworldliness, and Alberobello was a fascinating place with many artisanal shops selling weaving and pottery. But two hours was plenty of time to spend there.

Back in Monopoli, we took long walks along the shore, mostly after our afternoon naps when the air was a little cooler, and breathed in the wonderful sea air. Those final precious days with no responsibility, no agenda, no rush, were intensely savoured.

Now we need a prompt!

~ photo by Chanhee Lee on Unsplash

Write about a time when you or your character tasted something for the first time. Use metaphor or synesthesia to evoke the inner response of the one who is tasting.

PS: Years ago, when I was working to heal myself from cancer, a man said to me, “I wish that love could cure you.”

That’s how I feel right now. I wish that love could cure the political diseases of this world, because love is in abundance in so many hearts.

It’s hard to fathom what’s going on out there. I know it. I feel it. And I try to stay steady. Peonies are popping, hummingbirds drink voraciously, the river is almost still, and birds sing themselves right out of the trees. That’s the shape of my reality on this hot summer morning in Sebright, Ontario.

“All we are saying,” sang John Lennon, “is give peace a chance.”

Monopoli

with an i (and a writing prompt)

Discussion about this post