Mediterranean Sea
Gulf of Taranto
Taranto
Elite Yacht Marina
SY "Kamu II" with her stern to the pontoon.
€ 20.- per night.Click below for a bird's-eye view of our marina berth:
Logging the sailed distance of about 300 nm in 4 days (an average daily run of about 75 nm) between Malta and Taranto, sailing in company of a very active school of over 100 common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) which jumped and splashed together with breaching, tail-slapping, chin-slapping, bow-riding and porpoising.
Exploring the non-touristic, vibrant and polluted city of Taranto (dominated by the commercial port and the large Italian naval base) without being bitten by a tarantula (one of the sweet locals told us that in ancient times, residents of the town of Taranto, upon being bitten by the large local Wolf Spider, Lycosa tarentula, would promptly do a long vigorous dance like a jig; this was done in order to sweat most of the poison out of their pores and thus survive the spider bite - the dance then did became locally known as the Tarantella, which eventually became the name we use today to describe the large, sometimes hairy type of spider, the Tarantula).
Visiting the meticulously arranged exhibition "Leonardo da Vinci and Renaissance Engineers" in the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto and gaping with awe at technical drawings and models of practical and impractical stuff like war machines, flying machines, musical instruments, hydraulic pumps and movable bridges.
Fleeing this most polluted city in Italy and W Europe (according to the INES [Inventario Nazionale delle Emissioni e loro Sorgenti], the Italian national institute of emissions and their sources, 92% of the Italian dioxin is produced in Taranto and, in other terms, 8.8% of the European one) and touring the distant Itria Valley in Puglia thus marvelling at the funny white trulli houses (rounded drywall structures with gray, stone, cone-shaped roofs, cleverly built during the Middle Ages solely for the purpose of tax evasion, since - as the story goes - upon word of the taxman's arrival, by means of a smoke signal, the trulli were rapidly dismantled and moved out of sight) at Locorotondo and Alberobello, nowadays a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Refuelling at the grimy fuel jetty in the commercial harbour of Taranto
