#PugliaTravel | Valentina Expressions

Traveling Through Time

30 Jan 2022 2 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #AlberobelloPuglia, #Horse&CarriageShow, #PugliaCustoms, #PugliaTravel, #TravelThroughTime

The air of this May evening is fizzy and clean. Breathing without the city smog feels liberating. The yellowish streetlamps of this area add a sense of antiquity bathing everything in a golden glow, just as I remember these streets were in my childhood. Here, yellowish lights are still preferred, they keep the circadian cycle in check. Mornings are somewhat busy under a hot sun, evenings are supposed to be slower, people want to see the stars in the sky not being blasted with bright streetlights when they stroll for pleasure. Life is much slower here, it rolls differently than everywhere else and every moment has its own meaning. There is the smell of wood burned in home’s fireplaces, and meat being grilled in fire brick ovens at butcher shops where passersby stop to get a cone full of delightful small bites of roasted meats.

A stylish landau carriage with a colorful harnessed horse is parked by the marble steps waiting for an elegant woman to board it. Her hat made of feathers by a skilled hatter reveals a certain social wealth. I notice her fine shoes, silk and embroidered in soft pastel colors, just like her gloves. I would love to wear those shoes. Enchanted, I admire her for a short while, her gestures are feminine and well-structured as if she went to a finishing school. Her affected behavior reflects the manners of the time when beauty perfected even in the smallest details served to enhance the harmony of a woman. A man in a top hat gives her a hand to climb on the landau… soon they disappear in the distance.

I woke up from a dream and returned to where I really was, in Alberobello, Puglia, in an evening in May colored with yellow glowing streetlights, women in jeans and high heels, modern cars, colorful scooters, fashionable shops and the smell of wood-burning in fireplaces, the only thing that indicates I was in a slow life in the country and not in the city. I was there to see the Spring horse and carriage show. The horses wearing shoes were elegantly dressed for trotting the streets, and so were men and women on display riding the carriages.

I often travel in different eras, I guess it is my way to escape this reality that stinks a little more every day. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Copyright © 2022 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion consultant, author of 6 published books, a storyteller, and a blogger of many years. Her books are non-fictional practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, cooking and travel.
Get a copy of her books here: Amazon and Barnes&Noble

eBook Discount Week

14 Oct 2020 8 Comments

by Valentina in Books Blog Tags: #PugliaExperience, #PugliaItaly, #PugliaTravel, #PugliaTrips

I am new at this marketing effort with Amazon, I will try it for a while, maybe I will like it. I started a new reduced price campaign on all my ebooks only. This week “The Road To Top Of The World” will be offered at a reduced price. https://amzn.to/2H7ipGE

It’s a travel narrative about a trip I took to Puglia, Italy, with a group of American friends, who knew nothing about the region and ended up discovering a new type of life, full of emotions and new sensations.

Initially, I was going to Puglia by myself that year, it’s my native region, I have family and old-time friends there, it’s special, but not original.
My American friends heard me talking about the plans and adventurously tagged along with me. For them, it was like going on a blind date.
To say they had fun is an understatement.

During their stay in Puglia, they challenged me to write this book. I asked them: “what would be the tile if I accepted to write it?” I did not even wait for their answer, the title just came out “The Road To Top Of The World”. They looked at each other, nodded, smiled, and then said:
“You took us to the top of the world”.
That was the end, in my mind, the book had already been published.
Five months later it was on the market.

©The Road To Top Of The World – Author Valentina Cirasola

The book will be at a reduced price from:
Oct.14 through Oct.18, 2020 on Amazon.com

https://amzn.to/2H7ipGE

Also, it will be on sale on Amazon.uk from:
Oct.15 through Oct.18, 2020.

Take advantage of my offer. https://amzn.to/2H7ipGE

This is a fun book and if you are thinking to travel to Italy in the near future, this book will guide you to a wheel of new emotions. Thank you.
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page
Goodreads

Copyright © 2020 Valentina Cirasola, All Rights Reserved

Valentina Cirasola is a designer, author, TV producer, and a storyteller by nature. Stories told through shapes, lines, forms, and colors are very important to her design career to convey ideas that contribute to the making of a personalized home, reflecting the life’s experiences of people living there. As an author, she writes non-fictional books, they are practical ideas to apply in the home, fashion, travel, and cooking. Amazon and Barnes&Nobles

Life Is Too Short To Be Boring | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

06 Jun 2020 11 Comments

by Valentina in Books Blog Tags: #PugliaExperience, #PugliaFood, #PugliaTravel, #StoriesOfPuglia, #TheRoadToTopOfTheWorldBook

I am a clown, outside my serious involucre of an interior designer, I am a clown. I am the type who likes to joke around, to make fun of others, myself, and any situation; I am the type who likes to wet food with wines and eat it with similar people who don’t count calories. I am the type who likes to be surrounded by artists and cultured people and have an intelligent conversation on fun subjects, often not touches among friends. If the occasion arises, I like to be boisterous in a civilized manner.

*
However, these days I am finding very difficult to be amusing to others and myself. The heavy climate we are breathing and the patch on the face we must wear is taking its toll. I can’t put lipstick on, I feel naked and I feel my freedom has been taken away.

To remedy the ugly feeling of helplessness, I am going through my travels and remembering the good times I had.
I am watching short videos I made and going through millions of photographs. Refreshing my brain with exceptional travel memories it’s very uplifting, people and events come back and make me laugh again.

This short video brought me back to that day in the countryside of Puglia with the friends I brought along from California during and my local friends who prepared lunch for us in their country home.

We ate for four or five hours and drank rivers of red wine. In between dishes prepared fresh on the spot, we harvested white berries and blackberries from the trees, such delicious treats, we talked about the collection of fossil shells laying in a bucket, and how to plant the lambascioni, the sweet wild pearl onions growing only in the land of Puglia. We danced, sang, and laughed so much our stomach muscles hurt.

Everyone wore the Adam and Eve apron just to be funny. I felt we were celebrating the Roman bacchanalia, only in a civilized way. After the long hours of lunch, it must have been five or six in the afternoon by then, we set in the mild sun of an Italian May to tell stories.

Telling stories

One guy put on a boat straw hat, took a broom from the kitchen, sat down on the chair and sang O’ Sole Mio mimicking a gondolier as if he was rowing a gondola and taking us somewhere on the water of Venice. We were down South, instead, a long way away from Venice.
We acted crazy with lighthearted intention, we bonded and the memory lingered. This book tells it all.

The Road To Top Of The World – Paperback and kindle

Share your travel memory here, if you wish. We need to read about positive experiences. Ciao,
Valentina
Amazon Author’s Page

Valentina Cirasola is an interior-fashion designer and a storyteller by nature. Stories are very important to her design career to convey ideas because making someone’s home or personal images is not only about building around shapes, lines, forms, and colors. It is about the story one can create around their spaces and how they want to appear to others. She trots the world and loves writing travel notes, from which she draws inspiration to design her interiors as well. She is the author of the book about her travel to Puglia:
©The Road To Top Of The World and four other books all available on
Amazon and Barnes&Noble

Graceful | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

25 Jan 2017 4 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #Graceful, #https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/graceful, #PouringWines, #PugliaFood, #PugliaTravel, #WordPressPhotoChallengeGraceful

What do you do when outside is cold, damp and lonely? You go inside a family owned restaurant and find comfort and warmth in food. That night we did just that. The day had been relatively warm, a sudden drop of temperature was not expected for the night, but the prospect of being received in a restaurant built in 1900 with the tufa stone was too exciting to miss it. Gracefully, we were seated in a small room reserved just for us. The light yellow colored walls, the natural texture of the exposed tufa stone and the sparse décor were an invitation to feel at home.
I had no doubt food was going to be exceptional. Here, under the curved vaulted ceiling, nothing mattered that night. (Click on the photo to view it larger).

I couldn’t help noticing Giuseppe, the waiter pouring our wines with grace. He was elegant, attentive not to spill even a drop on the tablecloth of that precious wine, pouring from the left of the guests as the Bon-Ton requires, the seriousness of his motion, all said to me: “Here, you will be treated with class and grace“.
In my capture, Giuseppe looks totally absorbed in his task. Pouring wines is an art of its own, it requires knowledge, elegant manners, subtle motions and grace.

Wine represents the labour of many people and nature’s generosity, when it wants to be generous. The gracefulness of the people of Puglia towards food and wines tells how much respect they have for the land. Preparation of food is sacred, eating happy food prepared with love keeps people healthy.
Knowing that someone will take care of us, offering the best food they can prepare in one night it is grace to me.
The guests in that trip to Puglia are still talking about that night. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinaexpressions.com/trips-to-puglia-2/

As a writer and cultural promoter of Puglia, my native land, it is my intention to let readers feel and experience a new ”wheel of emotions”. I want to encourage them to visit areas of Italy not beaten by massive tourism and through stories of art, architecture, fashion, food-wines, shopping, I want them to create their special adventures and live it up in Puglia! Check out my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Carnevale Will Be Over Today | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

10 Feb 2016 Leave a comment

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #CarnevaleCostumes, #CarnevaleFood, #CarnevaleInPutignano, #ItalianCarnevale, #PugliaTravel, #PutignanoCarnevaleMuseum

(Farinella)

Carnevale will be over today. Celebrated all over the Christian world, Carnevale ends with celebration of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), rich food, dances and laughs, giving the way to Lent fasting.
In my homeland of Puglia (Italy), Carnevale in Putignano is as famous as Venice Carnevale. For over seven centuries Putignano was a protectorate of the Pope and for about two centuries the town was under the dependence of the Knights of Malta, a very powerful religious organization. Its inhabitants were always into agriculture work, which produced the renowned healthy Puglia’s country food. In addition people of Putignano produced quality hand-made crafts like cotton and felt creations and the most exquisites internationally known wedding gowns. (Click on each photo to view it larger).

(Birth)

In the last fifty years Putignano became known for its Carnival floats. The symbolic costume of Carnevale in Putignano is “Farinella”. The name of Farinella comes from an ancient farmer’s dish made of chickpeas flour and roasted barley mixed with sauces or it accompanies fresh figs. Flour in Italian translates in farina, thus “Farinella” means light flour. The costume even though takes origins from an ancient dish, it is really a fairly new creation, invented in 1953 and it almost looks like its counterpart Neapolitan Pulcinella costume. The figure represents a happy joker dressed in a patched up costume of many colors, it has a blue collar around the neck, hat and shoes with small bells attached. It looks good on kids. Carnevale ends on the Mardi Gras day with the parade of colorful floats more than twenty-two feet tall, hand-made by skillful local artisans, followed by the symbolic funeral of Carnevale represented as a pig.

(Putignano, Puglia – Italy)

(Chiacchiere – Carnevale Cookies)

The typical cookies for this event are Chiacchiere, meaning chitchat, very friable type of cookies that make noise when we eat them and sound as if we are chatting. Chiacchiere cookies are like cherries, one pulls the other and can never have only one. I take my traveling groups to visit the Carnevale Museum in Putignano, open all year. There we can admire the handwork of the artists who invent the characters, or imitate them, as some of the visitors do.

(Happy travelers in my group)

If you are thinking of going to Puglia, check out my Puglia page: https://valentinaexpressions.com/trips-to-puglia-2/
Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola will host one or two trips a year to Italy with the intention of showing Italy with the eyes of a designer born in those parts and let people experience the ”wheel of emotions” they don’t even know exist. She will take her groups to the non-commercial Italy, areas not beaten down by massive tourism. Valentina will guide the tours through art, architecture, fashion, food-wines, shopping and special adventures organized for people who want to live it up! Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Through The Grid | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

21 Sep 2015 9 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #MateraCaveLiving, #MateraSassi, #PugliaArchitecture, #PugliaExperience, #PugliaTravel, #WordPressPhotChallengeGrid, https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/grid/

Lunch is just over, fish was so fresh it was still moving in the basket when we ordered it for our afternoon repast. The Verdeca white wine typical of Puglia, served very chilled and smooth was delicious, we could have drunk many bottles if we didn’t have to be on the road continuing our trip. We should be heading towards Matera, but we are still lingering in the corner café between a coffee mousse and after dinner drinks. Life in these parts moves on slow motion, some of the people in my group are having a hard time adjusting to a quieter time of this region.

Traveling through the calm countryside of Puglia, a two-way provincial road, we occasional pass a three-wheeled Vespa truck or an agriculture horse and carriage, while almond and olive trees fill our view all the way there. The sun is lulling. Singing along with “Mimmo Lovely” and his music we finally reach Matera, about 50 km. away from Puglia. We park the car and adventure in a short walk to the nearby center town, through fancy boutiques and utilitarian shops. (Click on each photo to view it larger)

The historic Piazza Vittorio Veneto was built between the 1600 and 1700 in a mixture of Romanesque and Baroque architectural styles that was literally propped on a flat surface over the “Sassi”, the ancient stone residences of Matera. The new bourgeoisie buildings, churches, and monasteries built on a flat surface above buried the caves houses, shops, wine cellars, and cisterns underground. Looking down through the grid in Piazza Vittorio Veneto near the fountain it is not so clear that underneath a modern center town pavement there is a huge ancient city of more than 5400 sq. feet, which extends all the way to the convent of the Annunziata and its foundations include a tower once part of the Castello Tramontano. The ancient underground town hides residences in the caves, shops, warehouses, snow storage and a huge water cistern 49 feet tall with a capacity of containing over 132,000 gallons of water.

Restoration began in early 1990 bringing to light the ancient underground town, part of which we can visit now. Above the underground town a road has been opened to allow visitors to be taken by the view of original homes of the 1700s built in a highly refined style with the purpose of hiding and contrast the cave residences once only considered a disgrace to the town of Matera and now winding below our feet with its maze of neighborhoods, streets, and stairways, asking to be protected.

Don’t wait too long to see Matera, Puglia, and surrounding areas. Major publications in the world are writing about the area and tourists are flocking along with Hollywood actors who are filming and purchasing properties for their originality and the mystical energy those dwellings emanate. You will feel being pulled towards to earth.

If you are thinking of venturing in Puglia check out my Puglia page – https://valentinaexpressions.com/trips-to-puglia-2/. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinaexpressions.com/trips-to-puglia-2/

This post is in response to this week WP photo challenge – https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/grid/

I am writing a travel diary of my last trip to Puglia with an American group and sharing with all of you my notes of feelings, observations, food-wine tasting and experiences that have changed the lives of people traveling with me. The trips I organize are made for people who want to live it up in Puglia! In my books about Puglia cuisine, readers will find many easy recipes to follow at home. Check out my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Something Up The Sleeve | Valentina Cirasola |Designer

28 Jun 2014 2 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #GianfrancoNicastriPuglia, #GianfrancoNicatriFashion, #InteractiveFashionArt, #ItalianFashion, #PugliaTravel, #ValentinaInteriorsDesigns

Today has been a day dedicated to the beaux-arts and creative arts. We are approaching the studio of an inventor of Interactive Fashion Art. I was told it will astound us when we get to see what it is. The designer in person greets us at the door. His studio seems very industrial, but he doesn’t, he is fashionable and well polished. The door is sticking and the wind blows it open a few times. This going back a forth to close the door is giving me a little more time to observe his gestures. He is a smoker and very coquettish in his movements. After a brief introduction, I got him to talk about his invention, as matter of fact, he is wearing it. He is Gianfranco Nicastri.

His invention consists in a removable card 2” x 1″ of painted art taken from a canvas insert inside the wrist cuff of a shirt. Basically, a canvas has a few slits here and there where a 2” card is inserted. Both the card and underneath the card area are painted twice with the same details. When one card is removed the canvas area underneath is fully painted and doesn’t look bare naked. The painted card is then inserted into the opening of the shirt’s cuff fabricated with an open frame made just for this purpose. Only one wrist cuff of the shirt hosts a painted card. Women and men’s shirts carry this detail.

Painting on Canvas with Interactive Art

Shirt Cuff with Interactive Art

Woman’s Purse with Interactive Art

Upholstered Chair with Interactive Art

Gianfranco Nicastri – Inventor

At first I thought the system is a bit fussy, taking the card out of the painting and putting in the shirt, then one must remember to take the card out of the shirt again before taking it to the dry cleaner. Will people remember to do all that in this busy life we live? Then I remember we are in the south of Italy, people here know how not to get stressed out. Like all the new things it takes time to digest it. However more I looked at it, more I liked it. It is different, snazzy and why not wearing a piece of real painted art?! The shirts with the insertable cards sell on Gianfranco Nicastri’s site – www.nartist.it

Women purses with this technology apparently are being snapped up, he can’t produce them enough and jeans are still being perfected. Gianfranco has adopted the system of Interactive Fashion Art on upholstered chairs with arms and it looks so artsy. The insertable card is larger, almost as if the entire painting is done directly on the piece of furniture. Hopefully, we will see these inventions all over the world, as it seems they are already going. Traveling is the only thing you buy that makes you rich and we are learning so much on this trip. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

I am writing a travel diary of my last trip to Puglia with an American group and sharing with all of you my notes of feelings, observations, food-wine tasting and experiences that have changed the life of people traveling with me. The trips I organize are made for people who want to live it up in Puglia! Check out my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Monument | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

15 Apr 2014 6 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #1500sFashion, #DisfidaBarletta, #ItalianHistory, #PugliaTravel, #RedVoyageIntoColors, http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/monument, ItalyTravel, WordPressPhotoChallengeMonument

This week WP photo challenge comes at the right moment, in fact next month I will lead a group of tourists to Puglia, Italy where among many places we will visit the monument in the town of Barletta that represents the challenge between the French Army and the Italian Army in 1503. http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/monument

The monument is a wine cellar, better a tavern as it was called then, where boisterous soldiers would get refreshed with wines and after a few drinks their abilities to fight was challenged with offensive words that most often ended up in a fight. Two kings from France and Spain, Louis XII of France and Ferdinand II of Aragon, signed the treaty of Granada under which they agreed to equally share the Kingdom of Naples. The treaty apparently didn’t spell out clearly the terms for both armies occupying the same territory, thus created hostilities between the two armies. They always broke out in small fights on the interpretation of the treaty that would best suit them.

Disfida di Barletta – Tavern

Reenactment of the Challenge

1500 Fashion in Barletta – Reenactment Feb.13

(Some of the photos are courtesy of Proloco Barletta)

Sometimes, instead of fighting in the open field, they resorted to challenges in the field of chivalry, often held in the town of Barletta. On Feb.13, 1503 the most important fight between the French Army and the Italian Army serving under the Spanish crown decided the future of the territory. Thirteen Italian knights and many French knights fought a chivalrous duel resulting in the winning of the Italians led by Ettore Fieramosca. Today, every year on Feb.13 the reenactment of that historical event comes alive and the town of Barletta experiences life in the 1500 century, tastes food of the era and admires beautiful fashion parading down the road.

In May I will take my traveling group to visit the tavern and inhale the flavor of chivalry, when honor was the most important thing. Ciao,

Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina will host two trips a year to Italy with the intention of showing Italy with the eyes of a designer born in those parts and let people experience the ”wheel of emotions” don’t even know exist. She will take her groups to the non-commercial Italy, areas not beaten down by massive tourism. Valentina will guide the tours through art, architecture, food, shopping and special adventures organized for people who want to live it up!
Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Local Flavors | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

25 Mar 2013 12 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #ItalianArchitecture, #ItalianCulture, #ItalianLifeStyle, #PugliaTravel, #RedVoyageIntoColors, ItalyTravel

The idea of Local Flavors by http://biancadventures.wordpress.com gives me an opportunity to show some of the local flavors my group of curious travelers will experience as soon as they land in Italy this coming April 15 with me. That’s right, I am taking a group to Puglia, South East of Italy on the Adriatic Sea. In 2012 American soap opera running on T.V. since 25 years ago “The Bold And The Beautiful” filmed eight episodes of the main protagonist’s wedding between the towns of Alberobello, Polignano a Mare and Fasano, a very quaint area of the region.
I didn’t even know the existence of this soap opera until I spotted this video, now I just hope Hollywood’s influence on the region doesn’t help raising prices for the locals.

Don Antonio the fruit vendor, truly an Italian charmer, always offers the typical afternoon glass of bubbles (Italian Prosecco) with familiar shoppers that come in after 6:00 pm. He knows how to keep the shoppers faithful to his merchandise and how to keep them in the shop. It is a ritual while shopping there for produce to get a glass of Prosecco and a taste of something delicious his wife prepares daily with his fruit and vegetables. They are two delightful people who can steal your time blindly if you don’t watch the clock. Often, Italian shops are daily meeting points of people living in the neighborhood. They buy whatever product the store sells while they indulge in gossips, news, business or even planning future activities between each other.

My local flavors include the show all the fishermen put out on the seafood bank along the promenade in Bari, the main city of Puglia. My group will enjoy watching them opening live shell-fish, will get a real amusement hearing them making loud and colorful comments on who has the best fish of the Adriatic Sea and will feel enticed to try some of those delicious morsel of row fish, wine and bread. Puglia is the only region in Italy where people are accustomed to eat row fish, even if the price is as high as 50-60-70 Euro per Kilo.

As a local born in those parts, my work as a tour guide into art, architecture, history and local flavors will be easy. I am planning to show the area on foot and by a private bus. Walking around the streets is the best way to learn the customs of a country. My group will admire the beautiful Mediterranean architecture and learn some insight of the local history. They will learn that balconies are not just an appendix of their flat, but also places for eating outdoor, gardening and exchanging a conversation with the next neighbor. They will admire fashionable people, pick up some folkloric slang or……a lover. Well….., Italy is the country that will enrich you in every sense.

To register for my trip click here, I still have room for April 15, 2013 : https://valentinaexpressions.com/trips-2
Ciao,
Valentina
http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola will host two trips a year to Italy with the intention of showing Italy with the eyes of a designer born in those parts and let people experience the ”wheel of emotions” don’t even know exist. She will take her groups to the non-commercial Italy, areas not beaten down by massive tourism. Valentina will guide the tours through art, architecture, food, shopping and special adventures organized for people who want to live it up!

Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Come To Puglia | Valentina Cirasola | Author and Designer

19 Nov 2012 6 Comments

by Valentina in The Good Life Tags: #CulinaryTrip, #ItalianLifeStyle, #ItalianRegionOfPuglia, #PugliaTravel, #PugliaTrips, #SinsOfAQueen, #SouthernItalianFood, ItalyTravel

Through the years, many of you have expressed to desire to visit Puglia with me, a local who was born and raised in those parts. After putting my energy into the writing and publishing of three books, the time has finally come.

I have listened to your wishes and self-proclaimed a cultural promoter of the region of Puglia. Bari is the airport you will land in Puglia.
Puglia is a region on the East side of Italy on the Adriatic Sea, made of warm people, tasty food and free thinkers. You will see palm trees and a flat land with white terrace roofs. You might have the impression to have taken the wrong plane to Africa, but not at all, you will be in Puglia where homes are built on the foamy coastline of the blue-green Adriatic Sea and where the waves make embroideries with the sky, the air is salty, the summer heat is sultry and humid, women exude sexuality from every pores and well…the rest of the people are as laid back as in a tropical island.

(Click on each photo to view it larger).

In Bari airport, the largest city in the South, my team and myself will greet you with smiles. Each trip has been built around the title of each book I have written. My second book – “Sins Of A Queen” – just to talk about one of the trips’ theme, gave me the inspiration to take my guests into a lavish living while they are in Italy and experience incredible treatments with the most natural products from this land of olives, fruits and grains.
I will call this trip: “Let’s Travel Into The Sinful Luxury Of A Queen”.

The Lungomare of Bari, a romantic promenade on the Adriatic Sea will be waiting for us to drive along in vintage cars, dressed in vintage clothes, while soaking the fresh sea salt air, enjoying the view and a “gelato affogato” (literally ice cream drowned in a secret spirit). The promenade stretches to Monopoli and Polignano, two quaint towns perched on the cliffs of the Adriatic Sea. We might reach them in vintage cars, or we might take a boat ride coast-to-coast ending for dinner in a fabulous restaurant built-in the cave on the cliff. It will be magical!

Rudolph Valentino is on our route to the stalagmites and stalactites caves, thus we will stop in Castellaneta to visit the museum dedicated to the actor. Did you know Valentino was born in Hollywood as an actor, but his native town was Castellaneta, in Puglia? His town was an agricultural and unknown town even to the rest of Italy. He died August 23, 1926 and only a few years ago, his town counsels finally dedicated him a statue and a museum.
The Castle in Gioia del Colle will disclose us the intricate romance between Bianca Lancia and Emperor Frederick II, which as most passionate stories, ended up in a tragedy.
In between visits to the most exquisite Baroque architecture, Valentino’s museum and other cultural events, I have planned some fun shopping in local markets for the latest fashion clothes/accessories, where my guests can buy affordable priced items. We will also pay visits to local artists’ shops, where they produce one-of-a-kind high-class handbags, gold jewelry, custom jewelry, or stunning glass lighting, furniture and home accessories. My function as a designer is also to show all the beauty Italian artists are still creating for the world.

(Photo above: Gorgo di Fuoco Restaurant)

Food and wine will also play a large role. Going to Puglia and not enjoying the earthy food, as locals do, would be a crime. It will not be a common restaurant eating, I have used my fantasy. We will have one dinner inside of dismissed wood barrels of wine, where you can still smell the must of wine impregnated in the wood. On another day, an opera singer will delight our dinner. We might have a rustic picnic in the country with a donkey ride, or we might cook with a local chef in the kitchen of our farmhouse where we will stay. How about a massage with the green-gold of the land: olive oil?

My trips’ aim is to inform and entertain and certainly allow the guests to relax while in Italy with unforgettable experiences. My trip will not be a trip in a bus loaded with tourists, packing and unpacking every day and make stops to bathrooms. My goal along with my Italian team’s goal is to take care of our guests, giving them personal attention, while we are still together in a group setting. My intention is to show Italy with the eyes of a designer born in those parts and not the commercial Italy of the mass tourism. I want to show you the heart of Italian life, the immediacy of every day living with a lot of fantasy.

You will get to know Puglia through art, architecture, food, shopping and special adventures organized for people who want to live it up!
This is not a tour de force!
My goal is to allow our guests to experience a wheel of emotions they don’t even know exist. My team in Puglia and I want them to never forget the warmth and hospitality of Puglia people and create a relationship with our travelers for the long haul.

Trip date: April 15-24, 2013 – 10 days, 9 nights.
Registration closing date: March 15, 2013.

This price will include:
a. Two meals a day with water, juices and a couple of wine glass a person. Extra food or drinks, or extra drinks for the road, are not on the house.
b. Lodge, private transportation, transfer from and to Bari airport.
c. Private bus for our excursions.
d. Visits to museums or exhibitions.
e. Gratuities
f. Cooking classes and chef fees (if applicable).
g. Vintage cars, or Opera singer.

Please contact me directly for prices: designsvalentina@yahoo.com

Plane tickets and insurance are not included.
Again, this is a trip to realize how short life is and to learn how to enjoy it. This experience will change you. Ciao,
Valentina
https://valentinaexpressions.com/trips-to-puglia-2/

As a writer and cultural promoter of Puglia, my native land, it is my intention to let readers feel and experience a new ”wheel of emotions”. I want to encourage them to visit areas of Italy not beaten by massive tourism. Through stories of art, architecture, fashion, food-wines, shopping, I want them to create their special adventures and live it up in Puglia!
Check out my books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w