Alberobello

The trulli are not exclusive to Alberobello, in fact their popularity has made them a symbol of the whole of Puglia, with their characteristic pinnacle. Yet it is only by going to the place where they were born that you can fully grasp their beauty, in this village declared a UNESCO heritage site and awarded the Orange Flag by the Italian Touring Club. If, for example, you observe them from above the belvedere of Santa Lucia, what unfolds in front of you is the fairytale vision of an expanse of white houses with a grey roof decorated with simple and graceful designs. At night, each trullo lights up to compose a kind of magical nativity scene: they are the trulli of the Monti district, once the most popular area of the country and now almost exclusively dedicated to tourism. From the viewpoint, going down the stairs, you reach the wide Martellotta and going up the hill you meet a trullo built by two side by side domes, it is the Siamese trullo. The church of San Antonio, in the district itself, also takes on the shapes of the trullo. In the northern part of the town, behind the seventeenth-century church of San Medici Cosma and Damiano, is the largest sovereign trullo in Alberobello, the only one to have two floors and a large 14-metre dome surrounded by 12 other cones. You can enter the house museum and visit the rooms with original period furniture and a garden. Far from the crowd, the Aia Piccola district is the quietest neighbourhood where about 400 trulli are inhabited by locals and surrounded by a surreal tranquility. Here, in a complex of 15 trulli, the Territorial Museum tells the story of the settlement. In Piazza Ferdinando, the house of Love attracts the eye, the first house built in stone bonded by mortar that marks the transition to a type of palatial architecture of the nineteenth century.