Don Ferrante

After arriving at Brindisi Airport, the idea was to find some lunch between leaving Monopoli train station and arriving at luxury hotel Don Ferrante, but as we emerged into the latter’s unlovely new-town setting, it became clear that nothing was open. No – it was aggressively closed. With an increasing sense of doom, we walked through wide grey streets and peered into dark windows. The sea could only be downhill, so we headed that way; seeing nobody, hearing nothing. Shutters were closed, hoardings down. We continued in the direction of the sea for 10 minutes before we heard it: the clatter of plates, the subtle smell of cooking. Our holiday had begun.

Soon the new gave way to the old – sandy rugged brickwork, and dark narrow streets that seem to run round in circles. We followed our noses and came to an open door, a short flight of steps down to Trattoria il Cavaliere. In a room full of fishermen, we ate pasta and seafood, and drunk wine and felt alive. At the end of the meal – and, pleasingly, every meal in every restaurant after this – we were presented with tiny custard pastries covered in icing sugar called sporcamusi; translated, it means ‘dirty snouts’. We asked the way to the hotel, and we’re told to follow the sea.

It was low season, though in the dimness of the shops and cafés, and with our bellies full, it was easy to imagine this town in summer: alight even at midnight, the beaches stretching south along the heel of Italy and small squares full of noisy excitement. Don Ferrante is easy to find because its whiteness sparkles against the blue sea at its back and the dusty houses opposite. A brief bluster of sunshine revealed the patio and its pool, two loungers stretched out ambitiously. In high season, the restaurant, in a 16th-century gunpowder cellar, is open every night serving traditional Puglian food. At a little white-clothed table overlooking the waves, we were only able to sample the buffet breakfast and their very fine coffee. We lived.

Don Ferrante has the feel of an intimate guesthouse, rather than a sprauncy hotel, in part due to its location on the narrow streets of the old town, but also because you are left quite alone. Reception is in the basement under the traditional, vaulted limestone roof - you’re handed a keycard for the front door and your room as you check in. And if, like me, you’re the kind of person who cheers at holiday rain (there was plenty) because it gives you the opportunity to go to bed for the afternoon in freshly laundered sheets, then you will have few complaints. I was happy to peer out of the window at 4pm and imagine what the tiny cacti-surrounded plunge pool looks like in August, set up for spa treatments and cold drinks.

When the sun came out, we wandered along the coast, admiring the fishing nets and horizon, then back into the town, stumbling into Madonna della Madia Cathedral with irreverent awe. Built in the 12th century, it was redesigned in the 18th, and up in the chapel is a painting of the Madonna that is reproduced everywhere in town: on posters, in tunnels, on the side of a dirty motorbike. Legend has it the painting was washed up from the sea on a raft made of huge wooden logs. These logs were then used for the construction of the trussed roof. Even more memorable though, was the Purgatorio Church. It takes less than half a glance to realise this is no ordinary place of worship – skeletons dance on the heavy, dark-wood door, skulls laugh at you from the frame. It was night when we passed by, hurrying a little through the cold looking for a drink, but we were drawn to the window by a yellow light inside. Despite the doors being locked, the mummified remains of eight local brothers are propped in glass cases, visible even in moonlight. Round the next corner, we found a bar behind another dark door, and the bustle of a crowd diffused the fear a little.

The next evening we ventured back into the new town on a friend’s recommendation, for a plate of panzerotti to share – like a small fried calzone but about 20 times more delicious – but were careful to leave room for another chance stumble, this time into Trattoria La Locanda Dei Mercanti, where a feast of raw seafood (and free pastries) left us with change from a €20 note and the top button of our jeans undone.

As a base for all this gluttony, Don Ferrante, with its serenity and the sound of the Adriatic Sea crashing against the rocks as we drifted to sleep, was perfect.