A Trulli Cute Bit Of Puglia

Beguiling and bewitching, that’s a drawcard!

It was a lovely drive west past endless Puglian dry stone walls enclosing ancient olive tree groves. Poppies and cornflowers were scattered through the grasses and the view of Ostuni looked fabulous in the hot morning sun. We drove through Cisternino and on to Locorotondo for Monday’s ‘morning meander’. Next to a park with fabulous views over the surrounding Valle d’Itria, we found the tourist office and obtained a very vague map with even vaguer English descriptions. So we sat at a café in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele and indulged, yet again, in thick hot chocolate with a ricotta cannolo on the side, while I tried to read the confusing information on what to see in Locorotondo.

Apparently the ‘elegance of the piazza’ we were in ‘makes it a drawing room’. I guess we were sitting down on chairs with cake in hand….. Then we got a little nervous. If we leave the Piazza our ‘gaze will be raped by two sloping roofs which rise on the background’. Eeeks, I don’t want my gaze raped, even by a roof!!!  Further on, we would need ‘upturned noses’ for our ‘gaze to be captured by characteristic houses’. I just wiggled my nose and tipped my head back to look at all the houses. There was a small street which was described as being ‘homonymous’, ummm, maybe they meant harmonious? And the last thing on the leaflet was the advice ‘to cross the beautiful and smooth flowing bypass that has been recently built.’  It was ‘built with tenacity, will power and the art of a tireless community of ants’………….yup, that one had us stumped. When we did accidentally cross over it, we had to admit it was the smoothest road we’ve seen in Italy, but we never spotted the community of ants; I’m sure they were there somewhere checking out their work.

After a good amble around the old town, I decided that perhaps only ants lived there. Apart from half a dozen tourists and a German tour-bus group, there were no sounds or movement anywhere. The place was fast asleep. Had everyone locked up and left town? There were no more cafés, no-one sitting outside their houses, only one or two shops that were empty, just a maze of tiny streets full of white buildings that were delightful and most definitely very peaceful.

Rather than faff around looking for a car par kin our next small-town destination, we drove straight to Camping Bosco Selva on the outskirts of Alborobello. Then late in the afternoon, we strolled the 1km down to the town. What an astonishing place! Yes, it is touristy but that’s perfectly understandable. You have to see the place to believe it is real. There are apparently over a thousand Trulli buildings and it feels like you are in a cross between the middle of Hobbit town, or a mass of old fashioned bee-hives, or a multitude of chess pieces. It really is quite surreal. A Trullo has a curved cone for a roof and maybe more than one, some have quite a few, one apparently has twelve. The cone is topped with a sandstone pinnacle in various shapes: a ball, a disc, a bowl, or even a tiny cone.

We had passed a lot of these buildings dotted around the countryside, some were houses, some seemed to be used just as barns. But in Alberobello there were whole streets full of them, some free-standing, some in lines attached to each other. There are Trulli homes, Trulli shops, Trulli cafes and bars, even a Trulli church or two. Their distinctive pointy roofs pop up everywhere and wherever you stood in town, you could always see one; the Monte area has almost nothing but Trulli. We don’t think we have ever been anywhere quite so remarkable.

We paid to enter the Trullo Sovrano, a two-storey one that is now laid out as a museum and I fell in love with the feel of the rooms. The doorways were only just over five-feet high, so I didn’t need to duck to move between rooms. The white walls were all curved up to the high round ceilings with a few tiny windows. It felt light and airy and yet womb-like. I’ve decided I’m knocking down our house at Garland Road to build a Trulli. Though where I will find a Trullisto in Sydney, I have no idea…?

We sat outside a café and stared across the road to Trulli en masse. Then later on we picked the Trullo Antico for dinner so that we could sit inside one. Finally, as the sun was slowly setting we walked back through the curious little Trulli filled streets to Eileen, picking some flowers and some wild cherries beside the road.

Tuesday marked the day of completing 24 years of married life. So we decided to stay put, have a lazy morning and then stroll down to Alborobello for a long lunch. We chose the Trullo Giardino and sat out on the terrace at the rear, surrounded by Trulli roofs. One of us ate and drank too much and he struggled to get back up the hill to the campsite. I think any thoughts of more food today have gone out of the window, probably a Trullo window.