Trulli of Alberobello

If there was a theme to our recent southern journey it would probably be the interesting housing we encountered. Alberobello is famous for stone houses, unique to the region of Puglia, called trulli. They dot the countryside around the town, singly and in small clusters, until you arrive at the historical center to discover hillsides covered with hundreds of them. The original trulli were made without mortar. The hypothesis being that when the tax man came, given enough warning, the house could be reduced to an untaxable pile of rubble and then susequently reconstructed. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through since building one of these places would involve days, weeks and perhaps even months to complete. As we walked about the town, many of the trulli we encountered were very old, but they all have a sense of permanance. The exterior walls are mortared and the insides are finished surfaces. While the roof seems to continue to be constructed of unmortared stone, there is often a cap at the peak which is permanantly fixed in place. The typical trulli roof has a certain conical symmetry, even if it is placed on a quadrilateral building. The picture below is of a "trulli out standing in a field".

There are two concentrations of tulli in Alberobello. The western hill is shown below. A large fraction of the tulli there are either shops or can be rented out by the night, week, or longer. Yes, you can sleep in a trullo if your heart truly desires it.

The trulli on the eastern hill are mostly privately owned. There is a small public park/belvedere on the eastern side from which one can view the western side. The eastern area is behind Amy.

The largest trullo in town is called Trullo Sovrano. It isn't actually all that old, having been initially built in the late 1700's. It was built for the parish priest of the church it is directly behind. What is cool about it is that it is the only double decker trullo in existance. There is conclusive evidence that the building was not built all at once but expanded organically over time. The roof is not one single cone but instead, is a group of melded cones.

Originally, you could walk around on the roof of the trullo as the stairs in the picture below suggest. Windows on the stairway to the second floor reveal small rooftop terraces and walkways. However, the stairs to the top are now blocked and it is clear they don't encourage visitors.

A nifty feature of Trullo Sovrano was this hole in the bedroom wall to the left of the main entrance. It served the dual function of allowing the owner to see who was at their door and, as the shape suggests, to greet them with a gun if they weren't welcome.

The trulli of Alberobello and the Trullo Sovrano are on the UNESCO World Heritage list. A visit, if you happen to be in the area, is well worth the drive.