In 1419, when they built this castle, they weren’t planning ahead for wifi reception in the rooms. Three-foot thick stone walls don’t lend themselves to today’s wireless technology. I’m staying at Torre del Parco, in the town of Lecce, in the region of Puglia, almost at the very tippy-tip of the “heel of the boot”.
I arrived in the late afternoon, after 7 hours on trains, then took off walking into the historic center for dinner and a stroll on what turned out to be a balmy evening.
The Basilica di Santa Croce was brilliantly lit against the night’s deep sky.
Porta Napoli (Arco di Trionfo) is in such stylistic contrast the the rest of Baroque-laden Lecce!
Lecce’s contemporary town square surrounds a Roman amphitheater, half of which is still buried under the church, Santa Maria delle Grazie. The Church of San Marco stands at its side. (I think that every city should have a Roman amphitheater smack in the middle of it! They have concerts and theater performances in the elliptical ruins during the summer months.)
Lovers’ locks and the pink arch.
Now I’m sitting in the castle lobby (do castles have lobbies?) 8 feet from the Mac on the reception desk. HERE I have wifi! But if my communications in the next few days are sparse, you’ll know one reason why.
From Lecce I’m going on to Alberbello to stay in a traditional stone hut, a “trullo“. They probably didn’t build those with wifi reception in mind either.
Gee. This is the most “unplugged” I’ve been in a long time!
It is great to hear about your travels. Thanks for making the effort to keep us posted, especially without all your gear. How is the iPad working out? I can’t wait until you are able to post photos again. I miss them!
The iPad has been working out fine and I’m getting used to no real “keyboard” but rather just relative positioning for the keys. Funny how, after using a keyboard for so long, we really can adjust to no actual buttons. I do keep hitting “m” or “n” instead of the “visual space bar”. If you see typos, please be patient with my typing results.
Wifi presence or absence is the biggest thing, and that’s not a function of the iPad. Although last night, here in the castle, they said “you can plug your computer in directly, wired instead of wifi.” “Uh… No I can’t.”
I LOVE having the iPad for downloading and previewing my photos! And it’s a cool, fast and simple way to show people some of the images. If I could just figure out how to optimized them for the web (download another app) and get WordPress to upload them. The button was greyed out before. I’ve, of course, shot lots of photos that I can’t wait to upload…
Having the iPad is also invaluable for making train and hotel reservations!