Alberobello

Embedded in the heart of the Murgia landscape, stretched between the deep green and the brown red of a flourishing countryside, in a unique natural scenery in Italy, Alberobello, a small town with about 11,000 souls, 55 km far from Bari and 45 km from Taranto, represents the best known image of Apulia in the world.
Its famous rural constructions, known as “trulli”, were awarded the title of world Heritage Site in 1996: every year these monuments attract more than one millions visitors coming mostly from abroad and represent the main tourist resource of the region.
The trulli are very old constructions and their origin is still mysterious: traditionally these stone dwellings with a conical roof were built without any cement or mortar. This style of construction is also prevalent in the surrounding countryside where most of the fields are separated by dry-stone walls: its a rare and unique example of bio architecture. Although the style of construction is specific to Itria Valley, Alberobello is the only town to boast two urban areas composed of trulli: Rione Monti, the biggest and the worldliest, and Rione Aia Piccola, the most reserved and quietest.
Leaned on the side of a sweet hill in the oldest part of the town, if seen from the belvedere, Rione Mondi remembers a giant beehive for its more than one thousands annexed trulli separated only by narrow lanes reaching Martellota square as the streams of a river.
Rione Monti, the historical and business heart of town, is the most appealing area of Alberobello for tourists, attracted by the small and picturesque shops of craft products and typical local food. About 400 “cones” form the orher trulli area, called Rione Aia Piccola. Here time seems to have stopped in the early XX century: there are neither shops nor cars, and people can still breath the true spirit of a simple and genuine culture. People living in Alberobello are deeply proud of such an old culture – as the touching historical pageant organized every year with more than 400 walk-ons testifies.
Such a rich culture, based on hard work, is witnessed by the dry-stone walls which frame streets and the countryside, built with poor materials, or by the excellent local gastronomy which follow the rhythm of the seasons.
Thanks to the preservation and protection of nature and culture, in Alberobello, very close to the town centre tourists can visit three nature reserves.