It's More Fun to Drink Wine Than to Make Orecchiette

Yesterday's bicycle ride took us thru a zillion olive groves and then along the coast south of Otranto. They have these lovely narrow paved roads thru the olive groves - great for bicycle riding, but they go every which direction. How anyone can find their way without directions is beyond me. They say it was to confuse invading armies - I believe it.

Every so often we come to a small town - cappucino break! Each small town looks alike - a central plaza, a main church, city hall, a combo bar/coffee shop/convenience store, and lots of old men sitting around drinking espresso and talking politics. A nice, peaceful, low stress lifestyle.

We ended up at the town of Castro Marina for lunch, but our restaurant was closed. For what reason? Who knows? So we found another restaurant, but had to schedule our meal around a wedding reception at the restaurant. Only in Italy - a wedding reception on a Thursday afternoon.

After lunch (everyone takes at least an hour and a half for lunch), not many of us were in the mood for a long, uphill ride back to Masseria Montelauro. So Lewis crammed a bunch of us into the van and rode us up the steepest hill before we got out and pedalled the rest of the way. What a guy!

Before dinner, we had an cooking class - making homemade orecchiette, Puglia's famous pasta shape. Caren claims they are shaped like penis caps - how would she know what a penis cap looked like? What exactly is a penis cap? Something you wear in cold weather?
These two women were able to crank out the little pastas very quickly. After several glasses of wine, not many in our group could tackle the pasta making anyways. We left it for the kitchen staff to do the cooking and we settled in for eating and more drinking.

Do we really have to bicycle ride again tomorrow? Perhaps it will be raining when we get up tomorrow morning.