Conical-roofed trulli scattered in a fertile landscape, the vast underground town of Matera, early cave churches decorated with frescoes and the spectacular stalagmites and stalactites of Grotte di Castellana.
The distinctive cone-roofed stone huts of Puglia can be seen throughout the countryside between Lecce and Polignano a Mare, crossing the Valle d'Itria, many in disrepair. Those in and around towns in the region like Alborobello, Martina Franca, Locorotundo and Ostuni, however, are spruced up for visitors, freshly painted white, some with designs on the roof. They are popular converted to holiday apartments.
The land is very fertile and there are masses of olive groves and vineyards.
Alberobello is the quintessential trulli town, very popular with tourists.
Martina Franca was founded in the tenth century by refugees fleeing the Arab invasion of Taranto to the west. In the fourteenth century it was granted tax exemptions by Philip of Anjou and the town prospered. From the early 16th century to 1827 it was held in fee by the Carracciolo family and buildings in the baroque style sprang up.
Ostuni is a whitewashed town standing on three hills where remnants of Romanesque, Gothic and medieval architecture vie for attention in the Centro Storico. Baroque elements were added during an 18th century facelift.
Surrounded by olive groves and agricultural land, Ostuni is only 6km from the sea.
40 km south east of Bari these underground caverns are the longest natural network in Italy and full of spectacular stalagmites and stalactites. We visited in 2004 and were part of a small group with four Japanese and an Italian/American family from Boston.
The first cavern, la Grave (the chasm), reached by descending a set of steps, is enormous and has a big hole in the roof. It's a huge space and very impressive.
Then through one and a half kilometres of caves and passages festooned with stalagmites and stalactites, complete columns where a stalactite and stalagmite have joined, strange and beautiful formations.
It is fantastically beautiful and awe-inspiring but the final cave, Grotta Bianca, is quite stunning. As we were such a small group we were allowed to take photographs.
Matera to the west, actually in the east of Basilicata, is a rock-hewn place, a whole town burrowed into the wall of a ravine. Byzantine monks fled here in the 8th to 9th centuries freeing themselves from an iconoclastic Byzantine emperor; here they were able to worship in their frescoed cave churches.
The cave town is the most extensive troglodyte complex in the Mediterranean and one of the oldest inhabited human settlements in the world - people have lived here since Neolithic times. Starting as simple caves they were enlarged back into the ravine and fronted with what look like normal house fronts. Water is delivered (and sewage removed) by an ingenious system of canals.
As the population grew living conditions became cramped and unhygienic - by the 1950s over half the population lived in the cave dwellings, called sassi, each typically home to six children. Infant mortality was very high at 50% and malaria was rife. Carlo Levi wrote so passionately about the town and its wretched inhabitants that the authorities were forced to act and 15,00 were forcibly relocated in the late 1950s.
In 2004 we visited Matera and had a good long walk around, taking in one of the rock churches and a restored rock house, very small with animal quarters ate the back to retain heat, probably very smelly!
In 1993 the sassi were declared a World Heritage Site and in 2019 the town is a European Capital of Culture.
Around 15 km south west of Martina Franca the Puglian landscape is rocky, crossed by steep ravines and sprinkled with early Christian cave churches. Massafra straddles the ravine of San Marco separating the old and new towns.
It was necessary to book ahead to visit any of the 30 or so cave churches here, which we did in 2009. We went with a guide who took us in a tiny car closer to the churches which are known as Byzantine crypts for their links with Byzantine monks fleeing persecution. Some of the frescoes that once covered the walls are very well-preserved.
The faces of the figures in the frescoes are not expressionless; many are serene but others show worry or sadness.
