How did they carve a life out for themselves?
weather the bitterly cold winter winds that blew in from the Adriatic Sea.
Today, the trulli, some with the gnomic symbols still adorning the roof, are still in evidence, with the stone huts dotted throughout the Puglia countryside, even if their use as family homes has been largely superceded by 21st-century building technology.
Here in Alberobello, however, the hilly streets are lined with these unique testaments to human endeavour and skill, with the city placed on the World Heritage List by Unesco two decades ago.
Some have been converted into gift shops and there’s even a charming scale model of the neighbourhood located, of course, in the rear of a trullo (that’s the singular of trulli).
Some owners have combined their shop with a small museum component, welcoming you into a tiny space packed with shelving that alternates with a tiny alcove that was designated ‘the kitchen’ in years gone by. One shopkeeper directed our attention above our heads, to a mirror that allowed us a peek into the bedroom just under the conical roof.
It certainly gives one a vivid idea of how cosily Mama, Papa, the bambini and – who knows? – perhaps even Nonna must have been packed in here.
Then again, with the beautiful southern Italian landscape on your doorstep and the boundless southern European sky overhead, why would anybody have any desire to spend long periods of time indoors?
HERE in Puglia, there’s simply too much to see and do. Which is why this part of Italy is so popular with visitors, particularly those who like to combine a modicum of exercise as they learn about the local culture and history and appreciate the local food and wine.
I’ve travelled with Explore, who have been organising adventure holidays for more than three decades from their UK base.
Given that my idea of an adventure is braving Dublin’s traffic as I cycle to work, it’s comforting to know that the ‘Taste of Puglia’ trekking holiday is pitched perfectly at my level: easy rambles through gentle terrain (some off-road; some along quiet Italian minor roads) with regular stops for local fare. Our guide Tullia is a fluent English speaker who has a deep and abiding love for this part of the world.
Her enthusiasm is infectious as she introduces us to walking trails, gently weaving in nuggets of knowledge about, say, the local wildlife, how the gradient of the hillside and its aspect in relation to the coast has such an immense effect on the type of woodland that thrives in these parts... and how mystifying it is that tinned beans are so popular in the UK.
‘Even vegetarians I’ve met, they say they eat baked beans – don’t they know how easy it is to make beans in a tomato sauce?’ she asks. ‘First you take the dried beans…’ I daren’t tell her that beans on toast is as much a staple in Ireland as it is in the UK.
Hailing as she does, from a country with as rich a food heritage as Italy, simply decanting a tin into a saucepan and plugging in the toaster must be disconcerting.
After all, mealtimes here are long, drawn-out affairs with large plates of antipasti followed by platters of similar tidbits, all before the pasta course.
Today is a case in point: we’ve descended on the farmyard of Anna and Angelo Casulli where Anna makes prize-winning cheese from the cows farmed by Angelo on their 80 hectares.
The cheese that wowed judges in Milan this year is a hard, almost crumbly salty cheese that packs quite a punch, in terms of flavour.
On the milder end of the spectrum is the mozzarella that Anna, who is probably in her mid-50s, makes while we chat with Angelo about how he got into organic farming.
Watching this strong, determined middle-aged woman knead the gathered, salted curds in hot water, stretching the dough-like cheese again and again until it reaches a texture that is just right, and then tying thumb-sized lengths into the local delicacy nodini (‘knots’) is captivating.
THE fact that she manages to pull this off on an oilcloth-clad trestle table that’s been set up for our convenience under a walnut tree in the orchard is Anna’s least remarkable feat as she then disappears into the kitchen before bearing out platters of cheeses (of course), fried courgette flower, roasted peppers, focaccia bread, bruschetta, all of it homemade, in a succession of delights.
We feel like we’re beginning to make inroads into the cornucopia laid out before us when Anna disappears once more into the kitchen to bring out a huge bowl of freshly cooked orecchiette pasta dressed in a light tomato sauce.
Dessert? I didn’t think I had room for so much as a raisin… until Angelo produced a platter of grapes, plums, fresh almonds – all harvested from either the orchard or the vines growing across the pergola that serves as a car port here.
Everything we’ve eaten here today, from the wine, to the olive oil to the flour that went into the homemade focaccia bread, originated on the Casullis’ 80-hectare holding where they raised their daughter.
‘Go to the supermarket?’ Anna asks. ‘I have everything here…’
Luckily (for my waistline), there’s another walk ahead of us.
Tullia is no slave master: the judicious use of a minivan, which carries our luggage, and clever advance legwork by Tullia means that our treks are never that long or laboured.
Before too long, we’re working off the meal steadily. I’d expected the landscape around here to be arid and dusty. But the soil is a vivid red-
brown Larrgefertile. by evenly colour sprawlingspaced that olive fields looks trees populatedrich (someand of them still bearing hundredsfruit) areof years characteristicold – and of the countryside around here. Just over the border in the region of Basilicata, there’s evidence of how earlier generations had to graft hard to eke a living out of the land literally and literally carve a life for themes out of the local terrain. The ancient sassi (literally the stones’) of Matera are the caves re, for thousands of years, peohoused their families. The best vantage point is from the Parco della Murgia Matera, on the opposite side of the ravine in which the caves were built. what’s evident today is the higgledy-piggledy array of houses built on top of one another.
Over the centuries, local people would develop the frontage of their ‘cave’, giving it the appearance of a regular townhouse in the buttertoned limestone rock; the roof of that dwelling would become part of the street for the level just above, where the owner would build his own facade which would in turn… you get the idea.
It’s absolutely remarkable to see . You can marvel at cities like Rome and Venice, where gold and spices and other commodities flowed through for years, facilitating the building of awe-inspiring duomos. But in Matera, much of this work was done against a backdrop of comparative poverty, and with no more ingenuity nor labour than what was locally available.
It’s very difficult to believe that the Sassi continued to be lived in until well into the 20th century when the Italian government, recognising these conditions as a stain on the nation’s reputation, decided to rehome local families with, according to some, mixed results.
In the 1990s, however, there began a movement to preserve and perhaps utilise this unique resource.
Twenty years on, the Sassi are a Unesco designated World Heritage Site, with hip hotels and cosy restaurants raising the profile to the point where it is now pressed into action in Hollywood movies (it ‘starred’ in this summer’s blockbuster Wonder Woman, with Gal Gadot).
The Sassi’s resurgence will surely have helped Matera claim the European Capital of Culture for 2019 (keeping the role warm for Galway just a year later, natch). My room in the Hotel Sassi is a classic Sassi dwelling: it’s cosy, with room for just a bed, a wardrobe and a desk, and the bathroom is down a handful of steps that lead ‘further’ into the cliff face.
The only ‘window’ is an opening above the door of the room. If you’re a closet hermit, like me, you’ll find it delightfully self-contained.
Even better, just a few steps away from my door is another wonderful vantage point over the neighbouring Sassi.
As dusk falls, the rudimentary electric street lighting kicks in, and the cityscape takes on a honeyed glow.
Ah Puglia, I can almost taste it, even now.