Buzzing past a blaze of olive trees tumbling down to the coast, we swerve under an archway onto a cobbled lane that has us bumping and bouncing, our arms and shoulders doing a merry dance. “A massage is included in the price,” says driver Pippo, grinning at his joke, as he steers around another corner, then another, each street a blur of whitewashed buildings and seemingly narrower than the last. “It’s like a maze,” he says, although when I ask if he knows every street, his smile widens. “Si!” he replies, gripping his bike-like handlebars tight.
My previous trips in three-wheeled motorised vehicles have been in Asia, most vividly amid the eye-watering pollution of Bangkok and the intense humidity of Colombo. This “tuk-tuk” journey is taking place in Italy – in an Ape Calessino (“ah-peh”), a three-wheeler that first emerged in the 1950s and has been enjoying a comeback across il bel paese (the beautiful country), particularly for showing tourists the sights.
With Pippo at the helm and a refreshing breeze drifting up from the Adriatic Sea, we’re navigating the medieval labyrinthine lanes and newer panoramic roads of Ostuni, the citta bianca (white city) of Puglia. Having previously cycled around this region on the heel of Italy’s boot, I’m back on this escorted Collette coach tour, which began in Naples on the country’s opposite (west) coast. While our itinerary is nicely and languidly paced, it’s spiked with pulse-raising moments like this Ape ride.
Ape is Italian for bee, with the brand created by Corradino D’Ascanio, the aeronautical designer who also masterminded the Vespa for Piaggio. While the Vespa (wasp) symbolised leisure and freedom, the Ape was the worker bee, helping to rebuild Italy’s economy after World War II, enabling traders and farmers to transport goods and wares in rural areas and tightly knotted towns and cities. The initial models had commercial trailers attached, but the Apes evolved and later versions – like the Ape Calessino – served as open-air passenger taxis.
Our tour group is divided into a fleet driven by the white-bearded Pippo and his proteges, mostly local lads in their 20s. We hear personal anecdotes (“You see that church? I had my first holy communion there, 52 years ago, when I was six”) and we pull over at vantage points to soak up Ostuni’s gripping history and setting.
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Puglia produces over half of Italy’s olive oil, and 1000-year-old trees stud the groves fringing the city, its jumbled hilltop core gleaming white. With notable exceptions – including its late-gothic cathedral – the buildings are washed with lime, an antibacterial agent used to ward off the plague in the 17th century.
The colour scheme has been maintained, with owners required to regularly lime wash their properties. Pippo says the coating also reflects the heat, keeping their homes cooler in summer, when temperatures rocket towards 40 degrees. I’ve heard similar stories in sun-baked whitewashed villages in Spain and Greece, which you can reach by ferry from the nearby port of Brindisi.
I usually find the Greek islands irresistible, but Puglia’s pleasures are plentiful. Our tour allows free-time for seaside strolls – and octopus rolls – in Otranto, a bewitching beach resort with a 15th-century castle by sparkling turquoise shores. Another highlight is staying and dining in the quirky trulli (conical-roofed stone houses) dotting the surreal town of Alberobello.
And in lovely Lecce, a creamy, baroque beauty of a city, we sip Pugliese wine during an immersive performance of pizzica, a traditional uptempo folk dance that, according to legend, helped cure bites from a tarantula – a wolf spider whose name derives from another nearby city, Taranto. Like the Ape Calessino, pizzica has witnessed a cultural renaissance in recent years, but my attempts to master its frenzied, trance-inducing rhythms are hopeless. In fact, I think my (involuntary) dancing was better when we were rocking and rolling around in Pippo’s Ape.
DETAILS An Ape ride in Ostuni is included on Collette’s 13-day Amalfi Coast to Puglia tour, which runs between March and December, priced from $8249 a person (based on double occupancy). See gocollette.com/en-au
The writer travelled as a guest of Collette
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