Today I’m going to narrate
you about an amazing place named Pugnochiuso, located in Gargano, north of
Apulia.
I have been there one
week on holiday.
Pugnochiuso represents
for me the ideal place where to reinvigorating myself.
No cars around, an
immense biodiversity, a green emerald sea.
What else shall I ask for?!?
I know Pugnochiuso quite well as I have been working there for three years, just in summertime. It was a seasonal job.
I was a shuttle
driver.
I was paid to take
tourists up and down the resort.
The air of Pugnochiuso
is so balmy, so healthy due to the combination of pine
trees and sea.
Each night I went to sleep, I used to leave the window opened because I enjoyed to wake up the
next morning by the whistle of birds.
Indeed, I am fond of bird listening.
In the afternoon, I
used to rest on the beach, or alternatively, reading my books.
While reading The Economist (March 14th-20th
2015), I have discovered the outstanding story of Oliver Rackham, an English
plant pathologist and woodland archaeologist, who died in February 2015.
Oliver Rackham had
helped in 1962 to save from destruction the Hayley Wood in Cambridgeshire, in
UK.
He found out that the
Hayley Wood had been there for at least 700 years.
The latest battle
undertaken by Sir Oliver Rackham was against the trees being shipped around the
world, taking their pathogens with them.
As outcome, the
England’s elms had almost disappeared.
Beside that, horse
chestnuts and alders are affected a lot in UK.
We must not forget his
lesson: love trees and plants, from which our life relies on.
Talking about plants,
Pugnochiuso has a huge number of caper plants.
Eating capers with
tomatoes and tuna drives me crazy!
I guess, I have
collected around 6 kilos of capers.
I like to give a jar
of capers to my family as well as to my friends.
Therefore, I have
carried on in Pugnochiuso mainly eating what that place offered me: mussels and
octopus.
Why? Because it
reminds me the life during the Paleolithic, when human beings sustain
themselves by hunting game and collecting fruits and roots.
The bay of Pugnochiuso
is plentyful of fish and mussels.
Pugnochiuso resort has
been created by Enrico Mattei, the glorious CEO of ENI.
It's common opinion that he was brutally killed by those who hated him and his strategies of buying oil directly from Middle-Eastern countries, by-passing the seven sisters.
Enrico Mattei fell in love with the Pugnochiuso bay.
Since more than a
decade, Pugnochiuso is owned by Marcegaglia, of which the core business is
steel.
I have heard that
Marcegaglia would like to sell Pugnochiuso.
Well, I hope it will take
place soon, because Pugnochiuso strongly
needs to be re-launched in order to have more and more people enjoying this
corner of Paradise on earth.
