The Trullis

A couple of days ago, we made our first journey to the inland countryside from our coastal town of Mola di Bari.  We wound up the coast for a few kilometres and then got onto the autostrada, a four lane highway built only a little wider than our two lane highways.  Four lanes of traffic.  Slower traffic on the right, faster traffic on the left driving a strong 80 mph.  It doesn't seem to be a requirement to stay between the lines.  The requirement is to get out of the way when the person behind you wants to travel at a higher rate of speed.  A quick honk of the horn, a flash of the headlights speak, "Get out of my way."  Now after a couple of days, I must surprise you to claim that I can stay head of the best of them?

I digress.  We are headed to the trullis.  As we wind along the narrow road leading to Alberobello, we see our first trulli, followed by scores of them.  Building too close to the road is simply taken care of by stopping the building with a flat wall parallel to the road.  Need another room?  Simply add another trulli.

The abundance of limestone provides for the stone walls and stacked flat slices of limestone conical roofs that shed rain. Fascinating.  We catch on that brown signs are the guidelines for tourists.

Following brown leads us to an entire area, a Heritage Site, of trullis.

Laura and Anthony, the mother/son navigation team.



Narrow streets lead up the hill to more trullis and gorgeous views.  More than a few house sellers of all things Italian, tourist junk to fine pasta and wines.

Many roofs bear a painted symbol, often from the horoscope or a primitive religious icon.

The typical width of a street - no car on this one, but I did see cars driving up these streets.


And then the world becomes quiet.  After the jangling and banging of the vendors stowing their goods and lowering their tents, silence ensues.

The sacred  repouso  has arrived.  Time and activity halt from 1 - 4 pm.  We aren't the only hungry tourists who got caught unawares.

One young enterprising trulli businessman has a long line at his open door - he is aperto, serving pizza, foccacia sandwiches, spinach filled foccacia.  We contribute to his thriving business and head into two other villages in trulli area.  But those are for another post.