Macs with Packs: Puglia - Really and Trulli

We left the Basilicata region and headed into the Puglia region, which isn't far away. We stayed in a town called Locorotondo which earned that name because the old town sits on top of a hill and the houses are built in circles around the hilltop. This is the gorgeous view that greeted us as we approached the town.

These houses are all built in a similar style - tall with steeply pitched roofs. All the houses in the town are painted white and it's quite pretty.

However the region is also known for another, much older, style of housing. These are called trulli houses. Trulli houses are circular with stone roofs - they look like they're built for hobbits! There is no timber used in their construction. The best thing about our visit to Locorotondo was that we stayed in a trulli house! It was awesome! This is our house.

Most trulli houses are a couple of hundred years old although they can be up to 800 years old. Originally, the houses were just one room where all the family slept. Other nearby rooms were for the animals and farming equipment etc. Today, it's common to join all the rooms to form one larger house although each room still has its own pointy roof. Many trulli houses get renovated as they're protected so you can't knock them down. Many people in Puglia live in trulli houses like this one.

Our house was great. A new kitchen and bathroom had been added on and the other rooms were joined together and formed bedrooms and living areas. New doors and windows were added in and the whole building was freshly whitewashed. Our bedroom used to be the stable and the room that the original family lived in became a living area. We loved it here!

We went for a number of walks in the area and found a few older houses that were falling down.

Most trulli houses around Locorotondo were really well maintained. Many had similar whitewashed walls and roof tips.

Some weren't in such good condition but really had character.

The weird thing was that our trulli house was right in a modern town. There were clusters of trulli houses like ours scattered in among apartment blocks. It was strange to see.

We went for a walk out in the country and it was gorgeous. Like the trulli houses, the dry stone walls are also protected. They were generally very well maintained.

How cute is this little guy? We fed him grass. He was so friendly.

We discovered something incredible a little while ago - persimmons! It's persimmon season and they're hanging off trees in abundance. Persimmons have got to be the sweetest fruit I've ever tasted. It's like someone has soaked them in sugar syrup. They are too sweet for some people.

We drove around and explored a few places. I had to drag John to a town called Alberobello because it's very touristy but I figured it would be worth it. It was! Alberobello is famous for being full of trulli houses. It was amazing!

True to the town's reputation, the streets were filled with cruise ship tourists tottling along behind a leader holding a number aloft. They came in waves though so I was able to get photos without too many people in them. Apparently there is a port nearby where the cruise ships dock. It was strange to see so many tourists when we've barley even met another tourist for a couple of weeks. In Italy, the season stops dead at the end of October. Many hotels and attractions are now closed.

The trulli houses along the main streets were all converted to souvenir shops or restaurants. It was pretty tacky. As you know, John hates crowds so he nicknamed this place Trulli Disney. Just after he said that we found these for sale outside a souvenir shop!

There was a national park near our town and we had a lovely walk there.

We dragged ourselves away from our gorgeous little house and headed north. We had one stop at a castle en route to our next destination. It cost us 10 euros each to get in and it was really boring! We were in and out in 10 or 15 minutes. Oh well, I suppose some things have to be underwhelming.

Our next stop - and the last main stop on our trip - was Vieste. Vieste is a summer holiday place, which means nobody's here in early November! We do like that it's a 'real' town though. It's quite busy at certain times of day. Summer time finished last week and we are on the far east of the country which means that the sun comes up at a reasonable hour but it sets at around 5pm! To make matters worse, nobody eats before 8pm so there are about 2 or 3 hours of darkness before we can get dinner. It's a really strange way to operate.

We were constantly amazed at the local timetable. Shops open from 9am til 1pm then from 5pm til 8pm or so. From 1pm til 5pm people would go home, have a cooked lunch and a siesta. This sounds fine for the hot season but it was quite cold while we were there and it's not even winter yet. People were all indoors during the warmest hours of the day then they would go back to work just as it was getting dark. Meanwhile, anyone who didn't work in a shop would begin the daily promenade at around 6pm. People, mostly older men, would walk around the main square, stopping for long chats with friends. Younger people tended to do laps in their cars. By 7pm they've mostly gone and by 10pm the streets are dead, even on a weekend!

In promenade mode, we strolled around Vieste on our first night and watched the moon rise over the water.

We checked out the large working port and found something else for you Troy!

On a more sombre note, this stone is the place where the Turks beheaded thousands of Vieste citizens when they sacked the town in 1554.

The town was quite beautiful in the evenings.

We went for a walk in the Foresta Umbra - the Forest of Shadows. True to its name, it was quite dark under the dense foliage. It was absolutely beautiful though and it was nice to not be surrounded by people all the time too.

On the way back from the forest we went looking for trabucchi. These are hand-built wood and wire structures that reach out over the water so fishing nets can be lowered into the water from them. Our first challenge was to negotiate the very narrow roads heading out to the one of them. We were lucky it's off-season and hardly anyone else was around. It must be a nightmare trying to drive to these places in the height of summer.

We found our first trabuccho but the gate to it was closed so we had to check it out from a distance. This is quite a well-known one. There is a restaurant attached where you can watch your meal get caught. You can't get fresher than that.

Nearby, building stones had been quarried from the shore. These must make great kids' swimming pools!

We finally found one trabuccho that we could get close to. They're quite amazing structures. All that wood and wire reminds me a bit of a ship in a bottle. It certainly doesn't look very strong or permanent but the concept has been around for centuries

We had bumped into an Aussie couple the previous week and we arranged to meet in Vieste as we were all going to be there at the same time. We had a couple of good nights out with Mark and Minnie. On the second night, John had the most amazing seafood soup. (Thanks for the photo Mark and Minnie!)