A mostly sunny, if a little breezy day today so after a lazy start we headed out around 11 with our sights set on walking along the rocky coastline southwards towards Otranto.
Baia dei Turchi was looking absolutely stunning, though with few takers as the wind was blowing straight down the beach…
Somehow we ended up losing the coastal path as we approached the large seemingly private and closed Holiday Park of Villagio Club Med with all access points closed and ended up walking for several miles along a very quiet lane with olive groves on either side. It was quite a pleasant albeit not very interesting walk as it was pretty flat and with no passing traffic, in fact it almost felt like we were the only people about! Eventually using a combination of Apple Maps and Ordnance Survey we walked across a couple of fields (according to OS a footpath) until we could get no closer to the sea….
Quite frustrating but the edges did look a little precarious and again any access continuing south was blocked by another closed holiday park. However as we have been walking for well over an hour, I decided that we would abandon any plans to continue further south as access to the coastline didn’t seem to be possible. Instead we continued to walk along the edge of the field, that could or could not have been a diversion for the closed coastal path and managed to catch a couple of glimpses of Alessia Bay (one of the bays we had been trying to reach) – how stunning….
We did somehow end up inside the Club Med Holiday Village, which was very definitely closed for the season but fortunately the gate buzzer was still functional, allowing us to get out rather than retrace our steps! From here it was a case of retracing our steps along the lane and back into the open pine forest to pick up the warren of footpaths from Caletta Totaiello….
Back to a still windy and now mostly in the shade, Baia dei Turchi….
A little frustrating but actually quite enjoyable 8 mile round trip.
Today’s stats:
- Miles walked – 9
- Beaches – 3
- O/N – £15.00
