I live in Bologna and went to Puglia at the end of last year for the first time, loved it!, here are some highlights off the top of my head:
- We stayed a few nights in an _Agroturismo_ near Cisternino that makes olive oil, our room was actually a _Trullo_ [1], a type of building typical of the area. There are many such places.
- If you want to see lots of Trulli in a picturesque town, Alberobello is beautiful but quite touristy. Still worth the visit imo.
- In Cisternino, they have these amazing restaurants (that is, if you eat meat) that are basically butcher shops where you choose the meat you want and they grill it for you. One of the specialties are "bombettes". The town itself is pretty.
- In Martina Franca, you have to try (again meat) "Capocollo di Martina Franca", which is like the Parma ham of the region. You can probably find it throughout Puglia, but the town is nice.
- Ostuni is a very beautiful white washed town.
- Lecce is well worth the visit, I can't really remember all the restaurants we visited, just one for seafood "Il Vico Del Gusto", we liked it a lot.
- Coming from Lecce but you can probably find them in other places in Puglia are the pastries "pasticciotto", which is a shortcrust pastry filled with custard cream, (sometimes they add other ingredients). Yum.
- Another typical dish of the region is the pasta "orecchiette con le cime di rapa", which is this ear-shaped little pasta with broccoli rabe, garlic, chili flakes, olive oil, and sometimes anchovies. Simple but very nice.
If you want to know a little bit more about Guernica but only have about 15 minutes, I recommend this video by James Payne on his "Great Art Explained" channel:
There is an "Artwork Details" feature and in it a section "Paint residues from the act of vandalism", they are remnants of the act. I quote:
> The varnish applied in 1962 served as a layer to protect the polychrome and the red paint could be removed without damaging the original.
> At the present time, macrophotographs show reddish micro-residues, almost imperceptible to the naked eye. In some cases, this has entered the fissures.
For anyone interested in pigments/colors, the National Gallery recently started a podcast on the subject in YouTube, I enjoyed the Prussian Blue history episode:
I recently read The Poppy Wars trilogy by Rebecca F. Kuang, it's more fantasy and mythology than sci-fi, but it's very entertaining and I found the mythology and history (which I believe is based in China, though in the novel no real countries are named) very interesting.
Barcelona is great! Lived there for 4.5 years, beautiful city, amazing food and wine, not as much culture as say Madrid, but you can get there in 2 hours by high speed train for cheap!
Also, great public transport, biking infrastructure, _very_ walkable, they've made incredible progress here by restricting cars with initiatives like the "super blocks", I lived near where they put the first ones and loved it (I'm quite anti-car in general though).
It does get too busy in the summer with tourists but just avoid the worst areas (like a New Yorker wouldn't spend time in Time Square for example, I almost never went to "Las Ramblas") or spend part of the summer somewhere else in Spain like most Spanish do, at the beach or escape the heat in "the green Spain" (Asturias, Coruña, etc).
Also, Spain has recently released a Digital Nomad Visa, so you could get a remote job in the US and move there.
- We stayed a few nights in an _Agroturismo_ near Cisternino that makes olive oil, our room was actually a _Trullo_ [1], a type of building typical of the area. There are many such places.
- If you want to see lots of Trulli in a picturesque town, Alberobello is beautiful but quite touristy. Still worth the visit imo.
- In Cisternino, they have these amazing restaurants (that is, if you eat meat) that are basically butcher shops where you choose the meat you want and they grill it for you. One of the specialties are "bombettes". The town itself is pretty.
- In Martina Franca, you have to try (again meat) "Capocollo di Martina Franca", which is like the Parma ham of the region. You can probably find it throughout Puglia, but the town is nice.
- Ostuni is a very beautiful white washed town.
- Lecce is well worth the visit, I can't really remember all the restaurants we visited, just one for seafood "Il Vico Del Gusto", we liked it a lot.
- Coming from Lecce but you can probably find them in other places in Puglia are the pastries "pasticciotto", which is a shortcrust pastry filled with custard cream, (sometimes they add other ingredients). Yum.
- Another typical dish of the region is the pasta "orecchiette con le cime di rapa", which is this ear-shaped little pasta with broccoli rabe, garlic, chili flakes, olive oil, and sometimes anchovies. Simple but very nice.
Hope that helps/convinces you to go!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trullo