Vieste

After San Marino, we drove down the province of Puglia, specifically to the Gargano Promontory, which is like the "spur" on the heel of the boot of Italy. This promontory is predominantly forested, but the coastal areas have some civilization, and so we headed to the town of Vieste. Vieste itself was pretty much closed down for the winter; we thought it was a big enough town that there would be plenty of locals to keep things open and running. We were wrong. Our hotel the first night was an apartment that we rented, and the owner thought to turn on the heat about 3 hours before we got there. Needless to say, it takes a little more than 3 hours to fully heat an apartment with marble floors and cement walls. We were FREEZING all night long.  It was one of those situations where even the bed seems like it is sucking the heat out of you. The next day, we moved to a hotel and were a little more comfortable, albeit a little more cramped...
Vieste is a whitewashed city and against the blue of the sea, it looks very pretty when seen from afar (see pictures below).

Some views of Vieste

 On Christmas day, we went to the Foresta Umbra, which is in the middle of the promontory. It is a really beautiful forest with wide open spaces under the trees--not a lot of undergrowth. It really felt kind of like an enchanted forest. We found some ducks that were chillin' by a small lake, and fed them some old bread we had with us. Merry Christmas, ducks!

 Feeding the ducks. This might have been one of the first times Susannah actually put 2 and 2 together: the ducks that say "quack" in her books are the same ducks she sees before her. She looked a bit stupefied...it was cute!

 Susannah and Daddy walking in the forest.

 On the way back to Vieste from the forest, we took the scenic, seaside route. We saw this seemingly ramshackle structure, which we think is a fishing shanty (used in warmer months).

 Vieste, the white city, from the other side.

 The kids take any opportunity they can find to play on the beach. In this case, it was about 45 degrees F, windy, and COLD!  But they still wanted to play!

 Chiara and Susannah on the beach. Man, was it COLD!

All in all, our impression of Vieste is that it would be a great place to visit in the "high season" because more things would be open, the beaches would be clean, and the kids would be able to enjoy the sea more. However, I like going to places in the off season because we avoid crowds.  In this case, there just was NO one around. We were happy to be moving on to our next destination in Puglia, Alberobello, city of the trulli.