We woke after a reasonable night’s sleep knowing we were almost at the port of Bari, it was time to get down to the car and drive off the ferry back into Italy again. Our destination was Matera that evening but, as we arrived at 8 am, we had most of the day to fill. Our first stop was the town of Polignano a Mare on the coast 30 minutes south of Bari, to stretch our legs, grab coffee and soak in the Italian culture again. We spent a pleasant hour here, surprised at the numbers heading to the rocky beaches far below, as well as locals fishing from the cliffs.

We had heard that there were some amazing caves worth seeing nearby in Castellana Grotte, so that was our next destination, arriving and being charged €4 to park in the sun. As we entered the ticket office, there was a bit of a queue in front so we spent 15 minutes waiting until we approached the desk. We were informed that we’d just missed the English tour and the next one was 3 hours away. Feeling slightly annoyed, we retrieved our car (no parking refund) and headed to Alberobello where there was a great cluster of original and refurbished Trulli houses. The place was busy with tourists, but we enjoyed wandering the streets and seeing these beautiful structures dating from the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The area has been well preserved and although many are used as accommodation for tourists, some are still private homes. It was great to see so many of these unique houses and our walk offered wonderful vistas of them.

After a quick supermarket stop for food, we drove on to find a shady spot on the roadside to eat lunch before heading onwards to Matera, where we were on track to arrive around 3pm. However, as we drove along Chris was aware he’d hit something on the road, he thought it was a bottle; it made an almighty thunk as it spat out the back. Five minutes further, the car warning system started beeping, notifying us of loss of tyre pressure.  We pulled over to a thankfully wide shoulder, put out the emergency warning sign and donned the hi-viz vest provided. We had been told before we signed the lease agreement that there was no spare wheel, but there was an emergency repair kit that would enable us to drive to a garage for assistance. Google helped us understand how to operate the system – we had to get the tyre up to 2bar of pressure with the foam and then drive for 3-5 km to seal the leak, and then onwards slowly to a repair location. We didn’t make 5km, the tyre was still flat so we pulled off the road – now much narrower – into a farmer’s driveway to be out of traffic, and called Peugeot Assist for help. The consultant identified where we were, we were able to give GPS coordinates as well as a description, that we were on SP23, just out of San Basilio, Italy – on our way towards Matera. And then we waited and waited… an hour and a half later we got a text message saying that a tow truck had been organised, but would not be with us until 5pm, another hour and a half away.  We checked the text to identify where the tow truck was coming from – and realised it was based in Sardinia – an island off the west cost of Italy. We were quite puzzled and concerned, so we phoned up the help desk again to query this. The consultant attempted to placate us by saying that she could see where we were – on SP23, out of San Basilio, and this was the closest tow operator to us that they had a contract with. We tried to explain that to come from Sardinia would take 22 hours and involve a ferry, but she said it was the only one they could provide us and we’d be fine. We tried several times to explain we were not in Sardinia, but on mainland Italy. We grew more concerned, and phoned again and spoke to another consultant, explaining that we were not in Sardinia, we were 35 km east of Matera. It was pointless sending a tow driver to us from Sardinia, please find a closer operator, reiterating where we were, repeating our GPS and also the local Zip code – we think he finally understood but, at 5pm, we got a phone call from the tow driver trying to find us on SP23 in Sardinia! We felt sorry for him, but we were growing more concerned as the day got later – we knew the sun would set in another hour or so, we were on the side of a rural road, with no one around other than the house owners who (thankfully) were understanding that we were blocking their driveway, and a police car that stopped to inspect our car.

As the sun went down and we were becoming more frustrated and concerned with the time things were taking to get us moving again as well as our safety, we drove slowly up the driveway towards the house as suggested by the homeowners, our angels that evening. They welcomed us to come and sit with them – their house was a renovation project they had just embarked on – they were there that evening to do work but didn’t sleep there. Via translation apps, we managed to communicate our predicament – he said his brother could have the tyre fixed pronto, but we said we were bound by the lease agreement to only deal with approved providers. They said we should not stay in our car overnight as there are some unpleasant elements locally (he didn’t say mafia, but that’s what he implied). Finally, we heard that the tow truck was coming from Taranto – an hour away and should pick us up before 10 pm. Our new friends welcomed us to share their simple meal – BBQ’d chicken, fried stuffed zucchini flowers and fried bread. Then we spotted the tow truck as it sailed past on the highway! Thankfully he turned around down the road to find us, loaded the car (and us) to head to safety. It was a good hour plus to reach the depot where our car would be stored, we grabbed the majority of our bags and sat at the restaurant next door waiting to hear what the Assistance people were going to do about us now. It was already well after 11pm, but they were sure they could get us to Matera, where we had pre-paid accommodation for the night. They would organise a taxi for us… at 11:45 Chris phoned them back – we had heard nothing – to be told they had had trouble finding one of their approved taxi companies willing to take us to Matera, at best 1 ¼ hours away at that time of night, but one might be able to pick us up in 20 minutes. We balked at this, it was too late, check in had closed in Matera; we would arrive well after 1am. We were both tired and frustrated and, as the assistance people said they could not find an approved hotel for us, we said we’d sort our own accommodation. The waiting staff at the restaurant we were sitting at were so good to us – phoning around for us to find a place, notifying the hotel we would arrive soon, and calling a taxi for us. We were so thankful to finally arrive at a hotel and settle for the night. What should have been a short travel day extended out way more than it should have. We spent 8 hours waiting for a tow, not helped by the French call centre having to find English speaking staff to communicate with us, and then Italian speaking staff to arrange a tow truck.  

After a surprisingly good sleep we had to check out, unsure of what the day ahead would hold. Storing our bags at the hotel, we caught a taxi into the centre of Taranto to see what it had to offer. There were some interesting buildings and a great harbour, as well as a very long shopping street and a cafe with reasonable coffee. Once again, we spent a lot of the morning on hold to the assist call centre trying to work out how they could help us move onwards. Finally, we were told they had sorted a rental car for us to pick up, but not until 4pm, as everything closes down between 1-4pm in Italy. We managed to mark time in the town for a bit longer before claiming another taxi to take us back to pick up our bags (and more of our belongings from our Peugeot) and then to the rental agency, discovering as we went that Chris had lost his glasses – he was wearing his prescription sunglasses and hadn’t realised his regular ones had fallen from his pocket in the first taxi. We were very thankful to finally be on our way towards Sorrento, our next destination 4 hours way.

It was a long drive and we were tired from the stress of the day before, but very grateful we were finally moving in the right direction, resuming our planned itinerary – but knowing that sometime we had to return to collect our car once it was fixed.