Fig tree studies...

Just back from a week vacation spend in the region of Salento, in southern Italy. This time of the year there isn't much to do there, no more than drawing trees and flowers! The region wasn't what I imagined but it turned out to be very nice and restful anyway. The villages up north are supposed to be really nice but that turned out to be to far even by car. Salento is a rural region with endless olive plantations, the villages are very simple and most of the time nowhere to eat or drink anything and everything seemed more or less abandoned* every time we drove through a village. Once we ended up having a sandwich, three hours after lunch and on a gas station as there where nowhere else to eat! That's when we decided to explore smaller areas by bike, which was a really nice choice to discover the nature and smaller nearby villages. The habitants we got the chance to talk to turned out to be nice, curious and happy to share, although the first impression could be the contrary sometimes. As we are used to Parisians, who are not known to be very nice, we get always surprised to met nice people everywhere else. 

In summertime loads of tourists come to south Italy for bathing in the sea, and the coast villages are then turned into life again. But I prefer it folk less like this I think. 

Here are some fig tree drawings, unfinished though, as I was attacked by billions of mosquitos and ants and spiders where on every inch around me... My son screamed that I should evacuate because of the huge spiders on him and me! Yes, fields of flowers look so sweet and nice from a distance, but when you're sitting in them the impression is not the same (lol!).

*(I now know the habitants actually are behind those shut doors and window panes, as I could hear voices from in there. They don't seem to like the light or the sun! I actually started reading a book yesterday about a story from the region, and in the first pages it says that people think the sun and heat drives you crazy when you're exposed to it. It might explain the closed up houses. he he)