Impossible was the word that came to mind as our boat's captain positioned us to enter our first cave.

The dark, narrow entrance was no more than a few inches larger than our boat, with the task made all the more challenging by the undulating waters of the Adriatic beneath us.

The experience reminded me of amusement park rides purposefully engineered to take riders as close to walls and obstacles as possible without actually touching them; the goal is to incite fear and excitement.

Only here, we were in nature and 100 percent reliant on the Captain's experience. There was no room for error. Despite the low clearance, people began to stand and take photos as we slowly but steadily advanced.

Sitting on the right side, I watched as the edge of the boat glided past the striated stone, not once bumping it. Impossible, no. Incredible.

Once inside, the boat bobbed in place, allowing us to process what we saw.

The cave's interior featured a small "beach," for lack of a better word. In a dingy, one could get out and have just enough space to sit down.

The ceiling, relatively low to some of the others we would see, featured concentric rock rings. Erosion was taking its slow, methodical toll on the porous limestone.

The cavern was so small that the only option to exit was to put the boat in reverse and back out, a task handled as skillfully as our entrance.

The Gargano Promontory is filled with grottos (caves), as I first saw during the visit to Monte Sant'Angelo.

Departing daily from Vieste, a whitewashed coastal town like Peschici, boat tours take tourists to grottos otherwise inaccessible by land.

Several companies run twice-daily boat tours. We used Motobarca Desiree, which currently ranks #1 on TripAdvisor for things to do in Vieste.

The cost is no more than $20 per person (not including lunch), and the information presented on the tours is only offered in Italian.

Once we'd safely entered and exited our first grotto, we knew what to expect, yet each of the five or so we'd enter would be a different experience.

The second cavern was less imposing, as its back was visible due to the erosion of the rock above.

It was larger and more spacious, but it mainly was the warm sunlight that felt so welcoming. "Wonderous" is the word that came to mind as I looked at the tree-lined perimeter above.

I'm sure geologists love this stuff, but one need not know about rocks to appreciate their beauty. The Grand Canyon is a shining example.

In addition to the caves, it was also fun to be on the water, cruising east along the northern coast of Gargano.

We saw multiple stone watchtowers atop cliffs, similar to the ones that dot the rest of Gargano's coastline.

We passed a few resorts, with their private beaches and elevators built into the stone cliffs. Kayakers appeared as mere specks of color below the towering rock faces.

The first phase of the tour, where we visited the various grottos, took about three and a quarter hours.

We then sped back to a small, private beach we'd passed on the way out. It was here where we'd make landfall.

A barbecue lunch is an added cost to the tour but is highly recommended. There's free time for those who skip it to go for a swim or lie out in the sun.

As with all our meals in Gargano, lunch was fantastic. Given our location, I wasn't expecting much, but we were treated to beautifully presented bruschetta, freshly grilled fish, and cookies for dessert. There was even white wine.

We spent under two hours on the beach before motoring our way back to Vieste.

Related: Back Streets of Vico del Gargano

I had no idea what to expect from this boat tour, yet it turned out to be one of the highlights of the entire week. And I wasn't alone in that sentiment.

Polling my fellow bloggers at the end of the trip was also a clear highlight for them.

________

My trip to Gargano, Italy, was in partnership with Gargano OK.

Following a fun morning exploring the back streets of Vico del Gargano and lunch at the Arianna Club where we were staying, my fellow bloggers and I were introduced to Peschici.

Peschici is a whitewashed seaside village of 4,400 residents at the northernmost point of the Gargano promontory in southern Italy.

As was the case in Vico, I felt an overwhelming urge to scurry off and lose myself in the narrow cobblestone streets of the historic center.

This time, I also made sure to stop for gelato and pick up a few little souvenirs in one of the many gift shops.

Related: A Thrilling Boat Tour of the Sea Caves of Gargano

________

My trip to Gargano, Italy, was in partnership with Gargano OK.

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

Like a mouse in a maze, I wandered the back streets of Vico del Gargano.

Every narrow, twisted alley I encountered, my eyes opened a little wider. In years I was 37, but in spirit, I was a little kid again.

I knew nothing of Vico del Gargano upon arrival, yet it was as though everything I expected of Italy was suddenly before me. The mundane was fascinating.

The colorful doorways became the focus of my attention.

I have a thing for painted wooden doors and ornate archways, and Vico was full of them, adding splashes of color to the otherwise ancient stone facades.

Looking up, laundry lines hung from windows.

Vico del Gargano is known as the "Village of Love," and wandering the old center, it wasn't hard to see why.

One alley, in particular, Vicolo del Bacio ("Alley of the Kiss"), is entered through a 30-foot tunnel, barely wide enough to fit a single person.

Given the close confines, legend has it that whoever you enter the alley with, you'll end up kissing.

I imagine every guy in Vico takes his first date through Vicolo del Bacio.

Related: Touring the Sea Caves of Gargano

Upon exiting the covered section, you're treated to a small enclosed plaza on the lefthand side.

A romantic scene featuring a seated woman and a male suitor is painted into a niche in the wall.

A nearby plaque indicates the painting was restored on August 13, 2013.

It was a Thursday morning, and there were few residents to be seen.

An old Italian woman, surely someone's grandmother, stood in her doorway dressed in black, watching my fellow bloggers and me.

She was kind and patient, and willing to pose for photos despite the language barrier.

A few small sculptures lead my attention to a doorway. Above it was an old wooden sign with "Mastro" (Master) etched into it.

I entered the door to find myself in the middle of the craftsman's workshop. He stood before me with a lit cigarette and a smile.

He encouraged us to come in and look around. I continued through the workshop and up a staircase filled with old photos and a large phonograph.

Exiting the other side, I was now back near the start of where the walk began. A Norman castle loomed large, though there wouldn't be time to explore it.

A few of us took a bathroom and coffee break at Manita Cafe.

Nearby, a street vendor was selling the most colorful mushrooms I'd ever seen.

Once our group had reunited, we entered Museo Trappeto Maratea, an old underground olive mill built inside a natural grotto.

Opened in 1317 and used as a working mill until the 1950s, it now fills the role of Gargano's agricultural museum. 

The entrance is free, so there's no reason not to visit.

The most impressive feature was the giant wooden presses built into the limestone walls. The rest of the cave showcased old agricultural tools and machines.

High up on one of the walls, a quote caught our collective attention, "What is not eternal is nothing."

Related: The Whitewashed Homes of Peschici

To leave the mill, we climbed the stairs to find the rain from the day before in Monte Sant'Angelo had returned.

I felt grateful for the few hours we had to get lost in Vico del Gargano, a village stuck in time, which had captured my imagination and reminded me of what it's like to be a kid again.

As we drove away in the pouring rain, all I could think about was the opportunity to continue exploring villages like Vico.

________

My trip to Gargano, Italy, was in partnership with Gargano OK.

A few months ago, I was invited by the kind folks at Gargano OK, a consortium of local businesses, to tour their slice of southeastern Italy.

Gargano, part of the Puglia region, is known as the "spur of the boot" because of its location just above the "heel of the boot" on Italy's Adriatic coast.

For years, Italians have known it as a budget-friendly beach destination, but as I would quickly come to find out, there's much more to do here than lie on a lounge chair and work on your tan.

Our first morning was dedicated to visiting Monte Sant'Angelo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which would be the 98th on my ever-growing list.

This medieval town is perched upon a hill, occupying the highest point in Gargano.

As we drove up the winding roads, the weather turned from overcast to wet and windy.

Thus we didn't waste any time heading straight to the main attraction, the oldest shrine in Western Europe to the Archangel Saint Michael.

Per UNESCO:

"The first appearance of the Archangel is said traditionally to have occurred in the year 490, however it is quite likely that the cult arrived in the Gargano in the mid-5th century or even at the beginning of that century.

Initially, the cult of the Archangel Michael was mainly a cult of natural, healing forces based on the Saint's  appearance and revelations - in line with the ancient pagan worship - and was strongly marked by oriental influences."

Under the shelter of the entrance, our guide informed us that Saint Michael had appeared to people over the centuries on four occasions here.

The shrine has been a pilgrimage destination for much of that time, as it continues to be today.

Not seen in my photo above is an octagonal, 13th-century bell tower, which was originally a watchtower.

Upon entering the building, one descends a staircase to a pair of Byzantine bronze doors made in Constantinople and dating back to 1076.

Their 24 panels depict scenes of angels from the New and Old Testaments.

At this point, photos are still allowed; however, they are prohibited within the shrine itself.

Break this rule, and you can expect the monk staffing the small desk by the entrance to have a word with you.

Stepping through the doors is like stepping back in time.

The lower half of the room is formed by a natural grotto (cave), with upper sections showing the manufactured stonework.

Looking straight ahead, and partially visible in my photo above, is The Chapel of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

To the left is a small Choir and The Chapel of the Relics.

There are a handful of wooden pews to the right, as mass is still held regularly within the shrine. They face the altar of Saint Michael, which features a statue of him from 1507.

The rain had let up by the time we left the building.

Had it been nicer, I would've enjoyed walking through the streets of Monte Sant'Angelo to soak up more of the atmosphere from this town which dates back to the Middle Ages.

___

Monte Sant'Angelo became a World Heritage Site in 2011.

Click here for the complete list of UNESCO sites Dave has visited during his travels.

It wasn't by design, but Italy is the country I'll forever associate with my birth as an independent traveler.

I'd arrived in Europe with my best friends from college on one last adventure before we'd have to face the real world.

After brief stays in Paris, Amsterdam, and Prague, we arrived in Venice, a city I fell in love with upon exiting the train station onto the Grand Canal.

My friends didn't share my enthusiasm, and we left a few days later. Tension in the group had been growing from the moment we'd arrived in Europe.

I knew what I wanted to see and do in every city and was baffled by friends who didn't share those same interests.

The breaking point came in Florence, where my friends decided to return to the United States more than a month early.

I chose to stay -- an empowering decision in my early twenties that has continued to help shape life in my thirties.

Contiki, a leader in vacations for 18 to 35-year-olds, recognizes the value such an experience or trip can hold and is sharing life-changing stories like mine. Check out their site to view legendary Contiki stories. 

Once I'd said goodbye to my friends, and they departed the hostel to make their way back to Paris for their return flights, I was left alone to take stock of the situation. But not for long.

Another backpacker arrived in my room, and before I knew it, we were talking about music.

I realized I wasn't going to be alone after all. As long as I continued to stay in hostels, I'd encounter a neverending stream of young travelers out discovering the world like me.

Under my newfound freedom to do whatever I wanted, my first order of business was to hop a train back to Venice.

Any city that inspires me to call my mom from a payphone and proclaim I want to live there deserves more of my time.

Upon my return, I took a dorm bed under the rafters of a pension, where I met other travelers with whom to drink cheap wine and soak up the old-world charms of Venice's canals and hidden alleyways.

I left Venice for Rome a few nights later, followed by Nice, Paris, Dover, London, and two weeks tooling around Ireland in a clockwise direction.

I returned home from my two months in Europe as a changed man. I'd tasted the exhilaration of traveling to foreign lands with nothing but a backpack and a bank balance to deplete.

Four years later, with a few more trips to my name, I lost my job at a dot-com company due to a massive layoff.

I used the resulting four months of unemployment to reflect on how little travel I'd done, given my penchant for it after that first summer in Europe.

I decided it was time to prioritize travel, and everything else would feed into taking more trips abroad.

Twelve years and more than fifty countries later, I can look back with outstanding clarity and say I decided to first take a risk and head to Europe with my friends, and second, stay there when they decided to return home; that has made all the difference in my life.

In 2012, while traveling Eastern Europe by rail, I made it a point to return to Venice for a few nights.

For a city whose architecture and way of life on the water hadn't changed much in 1,000 years, it was safe to say I noticed few changes in the 14 years since I'd been gone.

_________

This post was brought to you in partnership with Contiki.