Trulli Land

Alberobello, a city of Trulli

We've moved! We're now all the way east across Italy, in the region of Puglia, in a particular area called the Valley of Itria (or in tourist terms: "Trulli Land.") The Valle d'Itria is known for a particular architecture style, found only here: the trulli, pronounced "true-ly."

In short, this region is exceptionally beautiful and green, and has flatter terrain, which has been welcome after the hills of Napoli. We even were able to go out for a 10k run - on paved road - which was novel because we've been walking mainly on cobblestone or sidewalks for the last three weeks. :) 

Trulli il Castagno - our doorway is on the left :)

For the first three nights in the Valley, we stayed at a lovely place called "Trulli il Castagno" or Trulli of the Chestnut. It was a fantastically lovely and relaxing place, and we had it all to ourselves (this is definitely not the tourist season here). Our abode was a renovated part of four trullis - each room is somewhat round, and the ceiling slopes up to the cone at the top. We had a kitchen, center dining space, bathroom, and bedroom, all within the trulli walls.

Trullo are everywhere in the countryside

I've been looking forward to this region since I first began researching our trip here - it is an architecturally amazing place. There are trullo everywhere here. Stone materials abound here, so the people of this place used them to construct these unique structures, and they made them without any mortar, simply "dry-stacking" stones on top of another, and filling an inbetween space with rubble. There are also bizillions of little dry-stone walls along every road as well. 

Today, we also visited another unique place - Grotta di Castellana, or Grottoes of Castellana. It's the largest cave system in Italy, with a 2km tour open to the public, with the culmination of the tour at the "Grotto Bianca" or White Grotto - a cave with only pure-white stalactites and stalagmites. It was spectacular - walls made out of quartz, and unusual formations and huge spaces. But - don't visit it in August! We had only 12 people on our tour; in August, the caves get 1,000 visitors a day, and it's a one-way tour in a couple of sections. 

Tomorrow we are heading to Matera to see the Sissi caves for a few days. Then we'll be back in this area, staying with our CS friend Antonio, perhaps helping him harvest his olive trees, and then flying from Bari to Catania, Sicily on the 11th!