I Love You Trulli: A Visit to Puglia

Puglia is the province on the heel of the boot of Italy. It is a dry land, but by tapping into deep aquifers, the natives have made it a thriving region for growing olives, almonds and cherries. (We're told springtime there is particularly beautiful.)

On our cruise, we arrived in the city of Bari, one of the region's two most important commercial centers. We were taken to the town of Alberobello, about an hour away. This town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, contains an estimated 4000 examples of an architectural style unique to this region and inspired by a desire to evade taxes: the trullo ("TRUE-low").

Trulli are houses that are built using the native limestone which is constantly being burped up out of the soil - you can see small limestone chunks everywhere amid the olive trees and farmland. The homes and roofs are built as dry walls, without cement. Some of them resemble beehives, but most look like tiny white silos (they are whitewashed annually) with grey roofs (the off-white limestone stacks darkens with exposure).

The drywall construction has its roots in feudal times. The region of Puglia was divided up among feudal lords during the 15th century when the King of Naples ruled over the land. After a lengthy war, the victorious lord allowed the peasants to begin building trullis as homes using the fieldstones, but they were only permitted to use dry construction.

The reason? Periodically, the king of Naples would send his controller around the countryside to assess the taxes he was owed by the feudal lords. Taxation was based on the number of residences standing in the lord's domain. So when word arrived that the controller was on his way, the peasants were ordered to dismantle their homes. This was easily done by removing the keystone, which caused the roof to collapse, so when the controller rode into town, all he saw were piles of stones.

Today, many of the trulli have been adapted into simple but attractive residences, and almost all are still drywall. We were permitted to walk through one, and it was surprisingly spacious considering that the buildings look like hobbit huts from the outside. Some trulli in the countryside have been purchased by Brits and others and refurbished into cozy holiday homes.

The village of Alberobello is charming. It is like no other place on earth, and it's worth a visit.