Cruise ship Odyssey - Day 11 - Bari, Italy

After a big breakfast, we left the ship and got in a van and drove about 45 minutes to the Puglia area of southern Italy with 6 of us from the ship including the captain who keeps a bike on the ship. Mark rode in the front seat with the captain and peppered him with questions the whole way. I sat in the back and made friends with the delightful couples riding with us. We got on our bikes and off we went. We rode about ten miles through olive groves and vegetable farms mostly on small farm roads.

About 1000 year old olive tree.

We arrived at our destination at a beautiful Messina or farm house. The owner had about 2,600 olive trees and ran a small bed and breakfast for bike riders. We watched a mozzarella demonstration and got to eat the fresh cheese right there.

The cheese maker had the most graceful hands as she tied knots and shaped the cheese and plopped it into a basin of cool water. I ate several knots and then ate the little bag of cheese swimming in milky water she sent back with us. MMMMM MMMMMM good!

I figure we worked off one croissant from breakfast , so we had lunch and it was very good. We ate lots of olive oil with our bread and then bought some to bring home.

Here we are ready to go back to the ship with the captain.

The captain collects wooden cats to put on the ropes to keep out the mice just like we put paper plates on the ropes at Lake Powell.

This is Cindy in the picture to give some perspective on the size of the bumpers for the cruise ship.

Before dinner we joined a galley tour. It was interesting to hear about the food prep and storage.

Dinner: Marinated heirloom tomatoes & buffalo mozzarella, lemon vinaigrette, basil sorbet

Sauteed Prawns "Saltimbocca", artichoke, cauliflower and salsify ragout