Having been to the Tuscany region three times already, we decided to change it up and head to Puglia on our next mini-vacation. Puglia is about three and a half hours east of Naples in the “heel of the boot.” Our getaway destination was just south of Bari, in the town of Alberobello—the trulli houses.
Trulli houses (or trullo, singular) are thought to be the product of a tax dodge. The houses were built without mortar so that when the tax assessors were coming, they could be dismantled and therefore not counted as dwellings. The feudal lords that lived in the area had permanent houses, but peasants that worked the land lived in trulli.
You can see in the picture above that the trullo on the left is of the original construction and doesn’t have mortar. Trulli were built all the way up to the 20th Century, the newer constructions did include mortar(as seen on the right).
With pretty much no agenda, we rolled into town around 5:30 and got checked into our very own Trullo house, which was approximately the size of a shoe box.
We had to duck to get into the front door. The small cutout to the left was the only window in the place.
About two feet from the bed was a little table and an adjacent room with a tiny shower and a sink, toilet, and bidet.
The main attraction in Alberobello are the trulli houses. We spent almost the entire next day wandering around the town, admiring the tiny little huts that use to house peasants back in the day.
Of course, no Italian tourist town is complete without a smorgasbord of artisan craftsman shops and a few dozen knickknack shops. Some shops were really, really cool, like one where the lady wove all of her own scarves, rugs, sweaters, etc.
Other trulli houses displayed your touristy gadgets. We found this particular sales pitch to be quite entertaining:
The best part of visiting the trulli houses were wandering around and finding hidden gems, like this beautiful alley:
Could you imagine living in a home this small?
I just couldn’t stop taking pictures of this town full of little, pointy houses.
There was the Church of Sant’Antonio, constructed in the 1920s to look like the trulli houses in the district.
The was another church, dedicated to the Medici saints, built in the late 1800s on the other side of town. It looks nothing like a trullo house, but not everything in Alberobello does.
As with every region in Italy, the Puglia region is famous for certain types of wine, Primitivo and Salice Salentino being two big ones. Primitivo doesn’t mean “primitive”. It refers to the fact that the primitivo grapes are harvested earlier in the season than any others. Salice Salentino gets its name from the small town where most of it is from. Of course, we felt obliged to investigate the local sapore of Alberobello in one or two cantinas.
On our way out of town, we learned a very important lesson on Italian parking. When we checked out of our room and headed to the car to drive home, we found we had been blocked in by someone who double parked. After sitting in the car for a good 5 minutes, a kind young Italian man walked over and gave us some advice.
“In Italia, you must play the trumpet to move the car.”
Who knew? Within 10 seconds of “playing the trumpet” (or honking the horn), an irritated old Italian man walked over, muttering something akin to “yeah yeah I’m moving it, hold your horses.”
It was great to get out of Naples for a bit and explore the only place on earth that has trulli houses. Italy is full of cool small towns like this.
Two Gators In Italy 