Photo 1: Martina Franca. Maria Immacolata square
17th stage of our tour, from Campomarino di Maruggio to Taranto for 41 km. We reluctantly left the B&B Le Vele, exceptional and I recommend to everyone, if you were to pass by there, to avail yourself of the hospitality, welcome and quality of service of this splendid B&B and the friendliness of Alessandra and Massimo. The care, the taste and many other small, but not negligible details, make this B&B the ideal place to spend a holiday. In fact, Cristina said that if we had gone the other way, as soon as I arrived, she would have let me go alone. Incidentally, the owners, seeing that we were on a bicycle, accompanied us to the village by car and then came to pick us up. Homemade bread with various cereals, freshly baked cakes !!! The town of Maruggio is also very nice and at the Fico d’india restaurant, in the evening we ate with good music and good food, at a very affordable price. Stop along the coast, passing through the splendid towns of Marina di Lizzano, Marina di Pulsano, Baia d’Argento, Leporano, Talsano, and then in Lama, walk, not without worries, the various roads that lead to the Mercure hotel in Taranto . On the road, completely unexpected, we made two rear punctures, one each. By now we thought we had passed the puncture test and tube change and instead the unexpected has arrived. Probably, not finding thorns or anything else, we took some glasses that were on the roadside during the stops to check the map. We spent the evening with Valeria, Cristina’s daughter’s former teacher from Vicenza, who took us with her car to spend the evening in the splendid Martina Franca, a town in the Apulian Murge. We visited the lively center, with its churches, palaces and squares where Baroque architecture predominates. In addition to having fun photographing and listening to the stories of our guide, we ended the evening in a typical Apulian way, eating in a butcher’s shop, which here are also restaurants where it is very difficult to find dishes for vegetarians and vegans! 
See you tomorrow for the final stage with arrival in Matera with its climbs, hopefully good, otherwise we will push.
Let’s start with a roundup of incredible beaches, if we didn’t know we were in Italy we could say we are in the Caribbean.
Photo 2: Campomarino di Maruggio beach
Photo 3: Torre Ovo beach
Photo 4: Librari beach
Photo 5: Torretta bay
Photo 6: A bay of Pulsano
Photo 7: View from our room on Taranto bay
Photo 8: The library of Palazzo Ducale in Martina Franca, seat of the Town Hall
Photo 9: Martina Franca. Plebiscito square.
Photo 10: Palaces in the Baroque style
Photo 11: Saint Martin of Tours church
Photo 12: Martina Franca. Detail of the facade of the Basilica of San Martino di Tours. Notice the Saint on horseback cutting his cloak to give it to the poor beggar
Photo 13: Street of Martina Franca
Photo 14: Entrance doors of some palaces and houses in Martina Franca
Here the video of the stage
