Three towns from the heel to Milan

In Mid-August it was time to leave the dry, disorderly beauty of Italy’s heel and head north towards Milan and onwards to Spain.

200km out of Ostuni and the landscape greens; we are passing the Gargano, the spur of the boot. We drive through the Foggia region, once mainly known for its wheat, now where Italy’s poorest paid domestic and immigrant workers pick and pack the millions of plum tomatoes that are canned and exported all over the world.

We are heading the opposite way to the traffic. Southbound on the autostrada seems to be the whole of northern Italy not already at the beach, families packed into 4WDs and roofrack-topped peoplemovers, and frequent episodes of congestion. Northbound the traffic is light, except inexplicably hundreds of expensive Swiss plated cars overtaking us for more than 100km. 

We have three days to reach Milan, and three stops each offer a slightly different Italy. 

Trani: the cathedral floating on the headland

Trani Cathedral

Trani Cathedral arch

Ancient limestone architecture shot against a turquoise sea and a cloudless sky: the combination of visual brilliance, neck strain gazing upwards and accompanying heat is dizzying. Built in the 12th Century and perched on a point, this cathedral might well have just sailed in off the sea.  

A marina full of leisure boats with a pristine old town, Trani could be a port on the Italian Riviera, hundreds of miles north and a world away from Puglia socially. Locals have abandoned the street in the heat except for no less than three wedding parties and their photographers (who I think must have the easiest wedding photography gig in the world – until I review my photos and I’ve cut off the cathedral’s campanile…) 

Best food moment: bocconcini and roast eggplant mini panino.

Chieti: the light softens

View from Chieti looking east

Just inland from Pescara in the Abruzzo region, Chieti is a classic hill town that underlines we have moved north: from the church and monastery the view down the valley is thick with the diffused light beloved of renaissance art and the town is an elegant grid of interlocking high-arched, marble-floored arcades that are cool to wander through at the end of a warm day.

Jewellery workshop, Chieti

Best food moment: the Abruzzo is known for its love of chilli pepper. A fat slipper-shaped calzone stuffed with sautéed spinach spiked with warming chilli from a bakery in one of the squares was juicy and flavoursome. Zucchini and mozzarella pizza is also tasty.

From the oven of the Abruzzo: mozzarella and zucchini pizza and calzone with spinach and chilli

Ravenna: glitters

Mosaics at Basilica di San Vitale, Ravenna

Ravenna was important to the first gold-loving Byzantines in the 5th and 6th Centuries AD. Its legacy of this period is its glittering mosaic art, some of the most intact, still spectacular pieces of visual culture to be found 1500 years on. There are eight sites in Ravenna on the UNESCO World Heritage List. I only managed to visit two, but I think one of them is the best of the lot: Basilica di San Vitale. My photo simply does not do it justice. It is an octagonal structure with its interior lined on all sides, including the ceiling with this reverent, detailed craftsmanship.  

Best food moment: Ravenna is in the fat hunk of a province called Emilio-Romagna that wedges in between the Po River and the Appenine mountain range in the north-east of Italy's peninsula. Famous throughout the country for its abundance of hearty food, it is where many of the staples that have been exported internationally and are known generically as ‘Italian food’ originated.    

Ragu, the shredded beef or boar stew served with pasta that has evolved in the English-speaking world to become Spaghetti Bolognese (named after the province’s intellectual and vibrant capital Bologna); lasagne; mortadella sausage (which in the United States became ‘baloney’ after ‘Bologna’); parmesan cheese; Parma ham; and balsamic vinegar di Modena. These flat red plains rich with farms and crops, and seductive hills on the horizon, are a gastronomic hub, and a pleasure to drive through. I ate lasagna in Ravenna: this was not a firm baked dish, but loose sheets of pasta verde layered with meat and cheese sauces.

Lasagne in Ravenna