Locorotondo & Alberobello - 21 October 2022

We’ve had a successful day 🙂 - 15 minute round trip walk to the Conad city supermarket. Lovely friendly, chatty and helpful man at the fruit and veg stall - really does brighten up your day being greeted well! Stocked up on essentials again - grapes, bananas, tomatoes, avocado - there was a lack of full fat Greek yogurt!, tinned peaches, coke, milk, water etc - as much as we could carry! My EasyFX card didn’t work twice, hasn’t happened before, will see next time I try to use it.

Tintin driving today. First stop 3 minutes away at an Eni station for GPL. None of it is self service in Italy. Tintin got the adapter out, tried in his best Italian to say it was for a gas generator - the man laughed - don’t know whether it was his pronunciation, or he didn’t believe us - but - no showing of paperwork, no asking was it for cooking - just filled it up! €13.44. Result! We’re happy - won’t need to fill up in Italy again this trip.

Was about 90 minutes drive, mainly on dual carriage way. We went whizzing past Brindisi, as it’s a fairly unattractive industrial town with a large petroleum refinery. The scenery has changed again from being very open and flat to more ‘proper’ trees and hills.

My problem is FOMO! I spend ages reading through guide books and online, just incase there’s something nearby that we need to see. Sort of wanted to visit Ostuni, the white city - but parking for Dave didn’t seem worth the hassle, as Locorotondo sounded a little similar - but with a large parking place to stay the night too.

We’re parked at Locorotondo (population c.14,000). We had lunch, then Tintin suggested cycling to both the town, and onto Alberobello as it’s not far away. What a good choice, 13 miles ‘exercise’, good views in the country, plus we’ve saved the €20 it would have cost us for the only Dave parking in Alberobello. That’s quite a few gelatos!

As we started cycling, in the carpark nearby were a lot of old cars, on a car rally - of course - one had it’s bonnet up!

Locorotondo seemed nice, clean, lots of restaurants - which all seemed quite full. Lots of narrow alleyways, white washed houses and the church was big and airy inside.

We took the back roads towards Alberobello (population c.10,000). The reason the area is a tourist attraction is because of the ‘trulli’ - whitewashed limestone houses of a style that might date back to prehistoric times. They have a few tiny windows and cone-shaped roofs formed from spirals of grey limestone slabs. There are more than 1,000 of them. Some of which have been converted into souvenir shops, art galleries, craft shops and cafés. From the 17th to the end of the 18th century, this was the only form of housing in use in Alberobello.

To be honest, I think we saw some original trulli houses on our cycle in the countryside, which better summed up what it should be like, rather than just tourist shops with loads of places to eat and drink!

Nice to see lots of olive trees again, the ones recently all look old and damaged. The soil is such a rich colour, if colour is an indicator - looks very fertile soil (so says the gardener with no experience!).

We did venture into one trulli, as it was free, with an explanation as to the motifs on the roofs. Ha, it was a ploy - upmarket jewellery shop! However, she explained the significance of the symbols - mainly a form of protection from the gods? The trulli we saw had the kitchen area at the front, 3 half circle bedrooms with space in the centre, and a mezzanine upstairs for children.

We wandered up to the church of San Antonio, also in trullo form.

Of course, we had to try some more gelato. Tintin had amareno (black cherry) and I tried a Bueno - €4 - good as always!

I took a copy of a photo from 1920 - the only thing different is the fashion!

From a Harley Davidson, to a scooter to a beaten up 3 wheeler work truck!

The drone has had an outing - you can see the circular white town!

It’s only 6pm - and there have been some very noisy youths - one having a wee right in front of us, parked in their cars alongside, despite a huge carpark, then the scooters trying to do wheelies. I don’t suppose we’ve heard the last of them, it being a Friday night!

Bonus photos if you like.