Little Villages Are Italy's Rural Treasures

Little village 1:  Trani by the sea

                                                    How tropical!

                              Do my eyes deceive me???     F L O W E R S!

                         The Adriatic Sea is blue, blue, blue even in January

                                                Boats on a glass sea

            Shrimp so fresh they jump & twitch & threaten to leap out onto the sidewalk

                                   Giant octopus staring at me with many eyes

Little village 2: Alberobello, land of hobbits & gnomes & smurfs

In the 15th century, a wealthy landowner wanted to develop the rich land in this part of the Puglia region of Italy. But he didn't want to pay taxes to the Kingsom of Naples. So he constructed a village of distinctive little houses called trulli, using a prehistoric mortarless building technique. A trullo is a small dwelling built from the local limestone, with dry-stone walls and a characteristic conical roof. Since these were impermanent, they were not considered houses & therefore escaped taxation. But they were so well & cleverly built that they were permanent & now comprise a large part of this unusual village.

                                 Olive groves on the way to Alberobello

                             Vineyards wear their winter clothes

                      The trulli huddle together like bad children in dunce caps

                         They are all white in the Mediterranean sun

                 One family lives in each trullo; signs & symbols decorate the roofs

The streets are narrow & winding & oddly clear of signs of life. Maybe the hobbits don't come out when tourists are around.

         This standoffish cat is not all that impressed with the unusual nature of his home

                                                Aren't they adorable?

Many are set up for tourists...olive oil, wine, & lots of tiny souvenir trulli houses

                                      Roof silhouettes against the noon sky