Hello! While my absolute favourite part of our vacation trip is yet to come, the runner-up is right here! While we were staying in Italy, we stayed for a whole day (including an overnight!) in Alberobello - a magical village full of trulli. Trullo is a dry stone house that has a conical roof, but you'll see those on pictures further in the post. This one will be more about stroking your needs for the visual rather than me typing a lot.

While the village is tiny and inhabited by few people right now and it can be seen fully within half a day, we decided to stay here overnight. This is because we heard lots of complaints that there are many day-trippers here from the surrounding cities, making it overcrowded - as in such a tiny village, even a few hundred people can make it feel overwhelming. To be honest, and maybe that's because we were there in June, right before season started, it did not feel so crowded at all. Still, being able to wake up at 6:30 in the morning and taking the perfect photoshoots was worth staying overnight.

Our Trullo

Because we were staying for the night, we wanted for it to actually make our experience in Alberobello even more magical - thus we went all out. We booked a trullo that was decorated as traditionally as possible and it was the best decision we could have made! It was done very well, with all the modern amenities available - just hidden so well that you couldn't tell they were there! We even had AC!

The bed was so comfortable and sturdy - perfect for a couple in every way. Behind it you can see a wooden piece, which - while looking completely innocuous - contains in itself a full set of plugs for not only regular devices, but also USB plugs!

Here you can see the door to the toilet, which sadly I can't find any pictures of - even though I am completely certain I took some! Inside was a great bathroom with all amenities and somehow it still looked authentic. Up the ladder was a small loft with another bed and a well-hidden AC unit!

This part was completely immersive and had just what you can see - I have to admit I simply sat down on every chair and acted like I'm in 17th century. Ready to take down the house at any moment, as apparently that's what was happening back then. The count or duke or whoever it was, ordered the inhabitants to build houses like these (trulli) to be easy to take down, so that they could pay less taxes when the king's representatives come to collect them.

The last part is where the fridge is. It is hidden behind the curtains, as are 3 different trash bins - as it is possible to separate and recycle whatever you are throwing away. Great initiative!

Pictures Galore

That was the insides of the house, but the real exciting part is on the outside! Alberobello is divided between the trulli parts, which there are 3 of, as well as the center which has only few trulli. The touristy one is of course the most picturesque and most of the trulli in there have been repurposed to be restaurants, museums and souvenir stores. This is the one all the pictures here will be from.

The viewpoint is stunning. The beautiful cone roofs with the nature in the background just makes you want to stand there and watch - which we definitely did, especially during the sunset later on during that day.

Honestly, even before you get to the traditional trulli, it is already astounding. The buildings already charm with their pure white colours and the cobble streets just add to the overall feeling of Alberobello.

As if the pure white wasn't enough, they even have flowery decorations on the walls, making it all even better!

This picture is here really just to confirm that it's not just my girlfriend who was there. The narrow streets add to the charm.. like everything else.

I'd just like to point out that my girlfriend's outfit just fits so well with the place - if only aiming for that didn't mean I had to pack into like 15% of the suitcase.

On this picture, as well as some of the previous ones, you can see a symbol on the roof. There are multiple symbols and there are even lists on what they mean or what their purpose exactly is, but the general idea is this: they protect the house from bad spirits, as the inhabitants of this village (and pretty much all places in old times) were quite superstitious! I found that interesting and a great addition to the whole fairy tale feel of Alberobello.

The Food

This part, as opposed to the previous ones, will have absolutely no pictures, as we took none. I just want to write a few paragraphs about how surprised we were at the food here and in Puglia (Apulia) in general. Living in the Netherlands and coming from spending 5 days in France, we were so pleasantly surprised at the size of the portions in Alberobello. We started off without breakfast, because we had to catch our bus to the village, so we were hungry for lunch. We ordered a few things, expecting smaller portions, especially looking at prices, but what we got was crazy. A fried food platter had us completely full - with all kinds of things like the typical Puglian panzerotti and its variants or even simple French Fries. We still had a full plate of Bruschettas staring us down!

The price of wine and drinks was also surprisingly low, which led to the embarrassing story of this trip. We spent a large amount of our afternoon looking around at the most beautiful and cheapest souvenirs - we knew we were gonna take photos in the morning, so we just focused on money-saving! We bought all the souvenirs we wanted (truly beautiful ones!) and went about with our day, having a bottle of wine at a place with a nice view (picture below), followed by a lavish dinner with even more wine. It took us until we were on our way to the bus next morning to go back to Bari to realize that we've left ALL our souvenirs in an unknown spot. We quickly bought some new ones to have something for our families, but well.. there went all our smart saving.

This view will never look as good to me anymore.

Closing Words

Here you go, this is my favourite place so far in Italy and definitely one in the top 10 of the ones I've visited during my travels so far. This reminds me, I will definitely be doing a few top 10 or top 5 lists throughout the next months, once I'm done with my holidays! I'm sure it could be interesting and I already have a fair bit of ideas.

For now, stay tuned as Polignano a Mare and Bari are coming up next! Not quite as impressive, but still places I enjoyed a lot.