As you may known, my real estate agency is just on the beach of Porto Cesareo in Puglia. Here we manage several villas and holiday homes for rent. The last entry in our portfolio of villas for rent for the summer period is Villa Anna (ID: PP02), a villa located in a holiday village close to the sea and some of my favourite bathing resorts like Bonavista, Togo Bay, Teranga and Samanà: kilometers of sandy beaches like the one of Torre Lapillo (photos of Torre Lapillo beach). Villa Anna is exactly in the zone between Torre Castiglione and Riva degli Angeli, find these locations on Google Map to have more information. It is a recently built quality villa with refined and new interiors. You have the possibility to rent the entire villa which is ok for 8 people or parts of it. In fact, Villa Anna is built in three levels:  ground floor, first floor and tavernetta: each of them can be considered like a single apartment or a simple camera with bathroom. Following are my pictures and my description.

Ground floor
On the ground floor we find a fully equipped kitchen with a washing machine and a toilet. The kitchen has air-conditioning and is also very bright thanks to its two doors communicating with the garden – patio and two windows overlooking the street. The sleeping area is detached from the kitchen by the garden and is composed by two bedrooms and one bathroom (the sleeping area has air-conditioning too). The garden is quite wide and equipped for eating and relaxing outside in the open air. It is possible to rent only the ground floor which is a perfect apartment for a family with two kids (ask for ID: PP02C if you refer to this apartment solution in villa).

First floor
On the first floor we have just a bedroom with a double bed and private bathroom and a terrace with a nice view of the country with olive trees. The terrace is equipped for eating and relaxing outside in the open air too. You can rent the only first floor like a kind of b&b solution, if interested ask for ID: CM01. You can also rent the ground floor and the first floor togheter for 6 sleeps.

Tavernetta
This is another space with a bedroom with a double bed, a bathroom and a dining room equipped with a cooking corner and a further bed for a baby, if you need.

Villa Anna is just 2 kilometers distant from the first beach. As I have written before, Porto Cesareo has around 15 kilometers of sandy beaches so I think that Villa Anna should be the perfect beach accommodation for discovering this part of Puglia. Within a 5-10 km radius you’ll find restaurants, delicious gelati, bars and pizzerie. In addition, Villa Anna is only 30 km distant from locations like Lecce and Gallipoli and around 60 km from Otranto. The villa is within a holiday village which has a big swimming pool. Villa Anna for 8 spleeps is not always available, for more information, pictures and for getting the prices contact me. Buone Vacanze in Puglia!

I have never written about the beaches where I live in Puglia. Some of the best beaches are just in my area: Salento peninsula. I think it’s time for me to write about them and to tell some of their secrets giving my tips on when to go, where to stay and what to see too. I mean, the beaches I think are the best beaches in Salento: Torre Lapillo Bay and Punta Prosciutto beach, in the small seaside resort of Porto Cesareo. First, I will write about the area in general, then I will go into detail of these white sandy beaches surrounded by a crystalline sea. I have added a great photo gallery to my article I think can give a perfect idea of what I am talking about.

Where is Porto Cesareo and where are its beaches?
Porto Cesareo is located in Salento (southern Puglia). If you are reading this article is because you are interested in knowing this part of Puglia, maybe you are planning a trip. In all likelihood, you know better most famous locations like Lecce or Otranto, Gallipoli and Ostuni. Well: Porto Cesareo is located in the middle of them, find it on Google Map or go to the end of this post. The city is well known in Italy thanks to its wonderful beaches (spiagge meravigliose), some of the best beaches of all Puglia: guaranteed. The city has more than 15 kilometers of sandy beaches basically located in Torre Lapillo Bay and Punta Prosciutto. Porto Cesareo is a destination which offers several hotels, b&bs and holiday homes and villas for rent. My real estate agency is just on Torre Lapillo Bay: here we manage several properties for rent for your vacation at the sea of Puglia (if you need more information, properties pictures, rates, … ask me). In addition, Porto Cesareo is famous for its fishmonger’s shops and restaurants which offer a buona cucina mediterranea. Very charming the seaport area with its archipelago and its fisherman’ small boats. Ok, now let’s pass to the beaches, the real attraction of Porto Cesareo.

Torre Lapillo Bay and Punta Prosciutto beach

As I have previosly written, Porto Cesareo has more than 15 kilometers of sandy beaches. I know very well Salento, here I was born and here I live: its beaches are the best of all southern Puglia. In Italy you can find similar beaches in Sardegna, some parts of Sicily and Calabria. The beaches of Porto Cesareo are the best of Salento together with the Turkish Bay near Otranto, Baia Verde in Gallipoli and the ones between Gallipoli and Santa Maria di Leuca (this area is usually called Salento’s Maldives). Let’s start with Torre Lapillo. The location is a Bay of about 5 kilometers which is delimited by two ancient watchtowers: Torre Lapillo and Torre Chianca. It’s one of the whitest and finest sand of all Puglia. In addition, the sea water is deep few centimeters for several meters starting from the coastline so it is a perfect place for family with babies or for people like me who like to sit in the sea water and read a book or simply relax. The feature of Torre Lapillo Bay is that it offers a lot of houses and villas on the beach. Punta Prosciutto is the same as Torre Lapillo in terms of sand colour and coarseness, but it has something more: 8 meters high sandy dunes and maquis, a paradise … believe me. In addition, it is a wild and with few buildings location: just you and the sea! Torre Lapillo is around 5 kilometers distant from Porto Cesareo, while Punta Prosciutto around 10 kilometers.

Following are my 3 tips for those of you who want to visit this beaches
(1) When to go: the ideal period to come here is May, June and September. In July and August there are a lot of italian tourists and the beaches are quite crowded. The best periods in general are June and September when the beaches are desert and all for you. Remember that August means “peak season” in Italy so you will find highest prices for everything, also for your accommodation. Choosing June and September you will save money and avoid the italian tourists …
(2) Where to stay: for those of you who want to take a holiday in hotel or b&b, I suggest to go to Porto Cesareo or Torre Lapillo where several accommodation facilities are. Who prefers the solution of holiday homes or villas for rent can go directly to Torre Lapillo Bay or Punta Prosciutto. Keep into consideration that Punta Prosciutto has no hotels and b&b, just vacation homes.
(3) What to see: from Porto Cesareo and its beaches you can easily get to Lecce, Gallipoli, Otranto, the fantastic Porto Selvaggio Park and the wine regions of Primitivo and Negroamaro in the inland parts of Salento with their great red and rosè wines and cucina povera foods.

Do not hesitate to contact me if you need more and personal info. And, if you come here, visit me: I am in Torre Lapillo, in my real estate agency! Following is a Google Map which shows to you where these beaches of Puglia are:

PS: I took the pictures of this article on April 28th …

It is always very very very nice to read about how foreigners see my country: Puglia, Southern Italy. I think we are about to witness an emerging trend: Puglia starts to be known for its masserie and not only for its trullos. The last confirmation is a great article published on Financial Times: “Forget seaside villas – this summer the cognescenti are renting ‘masserie’, or fortified farmhouses, in the southern Italian region of Salento”. Yes, just Salento, just where I was born and where actually live.

The article is a focus on the new trend for famous people: to buy ancient masserias in this part of Puglia and to renovate for their personal retreat or for the vacation rentals business which is a rapidly growing business here thanks to the rising of local and international tourist stream. One of the last new neighbour we have seen arrived is Helen Mirren who renovated a masseria in Tiggiano. Again: masseria. But, what is a masseria? Rebecca Rose of the Financial Times describes it in this way:

“Masserie were usually built as summer homes for aristocratic families living in nearby seaside towns; during the hottest months the families would retreat from the humid sea front to the cool walls of their holiday homes. These huge stone houses were tended to year-round by farmers and servants who typically occupied the ground floor, alongside farm animals. The upper floors were opened up only when the family came to stay [source: FT.com]

Yes, a true description. I want to add more. My grandfather used to live in direct contact with all the masserie in my area (the northern part of Salento, few kilometers distant from Lecce) and he told me a lot of stories. Some masserie were occupied all the year to follow the cultivations in the surrounding fields, they were a kind of the symbol of large landed estate, they were unities of crop production. If the landscape of Salento is how we see it today, it is thanks to the hard work of our peasants who cultivated olive trees, vineyards and field of vegetables and fruits for centuries. My family comes from this tradition.

Masserie were abandoned after the World War II, when Italy became an industrial society. That’s why we can see hundreds of abandoned farmhouses in the countryside. Happily, as I have written at the beginning of this article, now a lot of masserie are turned into b&bs, agriturismi, luxury hotels, resort, restaurants, … and it is a great pleasure for me to see this places where I used to play as a child to start a new life. If you want more info about masserie of Puglia and in particular of Salento area, just ask me: I am on hand. In the meantime, if you want to start with a nice reading and beautiful photos, I suggest this book: Masseria – The Italian Farmhouses of Puglia, by Diane Lewis (Author) and Mark Roskams (Photographer).

Photo 1 |Giuseppe Tondo
Photo 2 | fedewild

Photo | © M.L.
This short guide of six not-so-common things to do in Puglia is written by Melvin Lardenoye. I met him during a quick wineries tour in the Salice Salentino DOC wine area in southern Puglia: Salento. Let’s start.

I live in Puglia. Actually not quite. My life currently spins between two countries, The Netherlands (70%) and Italy (30%), where I spend most of the summer. Puglia, to be more exact San Vito Dei Normanni, is where my italian home base is. My wife (who originates from San Vito) and I run B&B Perla di Puglia. We enjoy this lovely region to the fullest: the climate, the food, the people, combined with its history and culture. Puglia is the perfect place to live a really good life. Give me a chance to sum up 6 not-so-common things that are really worth-doing.

(6) Go for an “Espressino freddo”
Forget ristretto or double espresso’s! During summer this icecold heavenly treat is what you have to try at least once. Espressino freddo is basically an espresso in which they drop a chunk of fresh vanilla icecream. To finish off, a drop of chocolate sauce makes it all perfect. That doesn’t count for the amount of calories though. Most bars in Puglia serve a variety of Espressino freddo’s, just ask!

(5) Do clean up after going to the unspoiled beach (don’t litter)
Puglia has hundreds of kms unspoiled coastline. To prevent a situation of overpopulated, commercialized beach area’s (like in some area’s in Spain, France or Portugal) a greater part of Puglian coastline is considered to be national/nature reserve. Big construction works are strictly forbidden! Unfortunately the litter in Puglia has increased during recent years, both by local people and tourists. Lead by example and clean up after you’ve soaked up the prickly Puglian sun!

(4) 12.00 o’ clock: aperitivo-time!
A great Puglian habit: to go and have an aperitif. Just before noon (when the great siesta’s kicks in) locals gather for a chat and a drink. Usually on the (main) market square but basically anywhere you want, you can enjoy a fresh aperitif like San Bitter, Martini, Cinzano, Campari and Aperol. Now this doesn’t seem that special. True. The fun part starts when receiving the drinks! Plates full of little breadrolls, polpette (mini meat balls), chips, olives, cheeses are served during aperitif-time, with almost no extra charges (in the smaller villages). No lunch needed after having experienced this great habit. Siesta here we come!

(3) Visit Ostuni
“La citta Bianca” (“the white city”) comes alive during July/August. This ancient city located about 8 km from the coast needs to be visited during the day and at least one time during or after sunset. Being on the main square almost gives you the feeling of being in some South-American city. Get lost in the tiny streets and end up at, yet another, beautiful square. During night time, don’t forget to grab a cocktail, sit down, and just glare at the beautiful people passing by. You might spot one or two Italian celebrities here.

(2) Go clubbing
When I first came to Puglia, I was under the impression that, after, dark, nightlive was pretty much unknown in this part of the world. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Especially during july/august Puglia seems to be transformed to a huge club scene. International dj’s, live-acts, dancers, flames, fireworks, you name it! Famous beach-clubs are Guna Beach (Torre Guaceto), Guendalina (Lecce) and Masseria Coccaro. Funny difference with the Northern scene: Italians are obviously Mediterranean drinkers. 1 or 2 cocktails or drinks during a full night out is about average, while northern Europeans tend to quadruple this amount. After all we in the north are more Celtic drinkers. Always make sure one of your friends stays sober during a Puglian night out. When drinking, don’t drive.

(1) Do a wine tour
If Puglia was a country, it would be the 7th largest wine-producing country in the world. How about that! Principal wine towns in Puglia include Lecce, Martina Franca, Manduria (a lot of “Primitivo” is produced here) and Salice Salentino. More than 60% of the production of wines in Puglia is red wine. One of the best known grapes is the Negroamaro, which doesn’t stand for black & bitter. The name is thought to derive from two words meaning ‘black’: the Latin language ‘negro’ and the ancient Greek ‘maru’.

For some great English (!) wine tours, the town of Guagnano is a great starting point.

Follow Perla di Puglia on Twitter @perladipuglia

This is the third extract of three from “Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie”, a book written by Andrew P. Sykes about is Eurovelo 5, a bike tour from Reading to Brindisi, in the heel of Italy, Puglia. In this post Andrew arrives in Cisternino for a visit to his friends Basil and Liz who restored a trullo in the countryside.

I needed no incentive to escape Alberobello although I did have one; the thought of meeting up with Basil and Liz at the next but one town. I did hope they were in. It would have been very embarrassing for all concerned if they had decided to go away for the weekend. Logic said that they would be there; they had, after all, been following my journey all the way since the day I shook Basil’s hand back in our home town of Reading and told him, a little nervously, that I would see him again in Puglia. In many ways it seemed such a long time ago when I thought about the places that I had visited, the people I had met and the adventures that I had taken part in en route. But it was only five weeks.

As I approached the town of Cisternino, my emotions were a little mixed. I was happy to be nearing the end of the journey and having had Puglia in mind as the destination for the previous two years of planning, I had no enthusiasm (or indeed time) to continue cycling to Greece, Turkey or beyond. But my heart and mind were giving me mixed messages about what would happen over the course of the next day or so. The shaking of hands, embraces, telling of stories, dare I say adulation for what I had done would come in Cisternino when I met my friends and perhaps their friends and acquaintances in the town. But this was not the end of the Eurovelo 5. That would be at the harbour wall in Brindisi the following morning where, unless someone was keeping a very big surprise from me, there would be just me, Reggie and the vast expanse of the Mediterranean Sea to mark the real end of my journey. The events that were about to take place in Cisternino would seem to be a bit like opening your presents on the day before your birthday.

Parking my emotions to one side, I approached Cisternino. I had not visited the town on my previous visit to Basil and Liz as when I did, they were living in the restored and expanded trullo that they owned near the town of Ostuni some 10km down the road from Cisternino. This ever-more-luxurious trullo was now rented out to paying guests during the summer months and Basil and Liz had moved into a small flat in the centre of Cisternino. It was here that I would be spending most of my time in Puglia. On the outskirts of town there was a large yellow sign informing me that I was about to enter the town. I paused to take a picture and texted it to Basil so that he could estimate where I was and so that hopefully, he would text back some instructions as to where I should meet him. I continued up and hill and sure enough there was a loud beep indicating that a message had arrived. I was to cycle into the centre of town until the crossroads as which point I should turn right onto the Via 24 Maggio. After a couple of hundred metres I would see the terrace of a bar upon which Basil, Liz and a large beer would be sitting. I hoped.

I found the Via 24 Maggio without problem. I found a bar with a terrace. But I didn’t find Basil, Liz or the beer. I cycled around aimlessly for a few moments checking and double-checking that what I could see matched up with the instructions given to me by Basil. It made no sense that he would have sent me a text message only a few moments before I arrived which was wrong. There were a couple of elderly gentlemen sitting on a wall in the park next to the bar but all they could do was confirm that yes, I was where I thought I was. It would be ironic indeed if, after having successfully navigated a route across an entire continent, I was unable to find the people who had been one of the main reasons why I had chosen to come all the way to southern Italy in the first place. It was all becoming a little anti-climatic. Here I was at one of the two finishing lines – the other one was the real one in Brindisi of course – but no-one was here to greet me. I had never expected so much as a white tape to be held out in front of me, but a familiar face and welcoming smile would have been nice.

I decided to venture a bit further along the road. It dipped a little under a long wall and to my left I began to see the white-washed buildings of the old part of town. If Basil and Liz were not to be found, I would at least be able to wander around some pretty streets. With my eyes distracted by the beauty of the architecture, I almost missed the faint but familiar voice that shouted ‘hello’ just a few metres away. I turned to see Basil, distinctly more tanned that he had been a few weeks earlier in Berkshire but whose equally distinctive Geordie twang confirmed, if confirmation was needed, that it was indeed him. ‘Welcome to Puglia!’ he cried. At the bar with the terrace where Liz had already arrived and ordered drinks, the celebration that wasn’t really a celebration ensued. It was a different bar than the one that I had initially found although it matched the description in the text message just as well. We spent the next couple of hours happily consuming far too many beers, certainly for a hot afternoon in the south of Italy but who cared? Although not quite finished, I did have something to celebrate and I certainly wasn’t going to wait to do it with just Reggie by my side in Brindisi the following day. Well done to me!

Apart from the joy of seeing friendly, familiar faces after such a long period of seeing only friendly but mainly unfamiliar faces, it was good to relax and begin to unwind. It was great to let others make the decisions once again but unlike the frenzy of the first night with Massimo in Benevento, that evening in Cisternino was taken at a very leisurely pace, nothing hurried, nothing forced. Think slow and then slow it down just a little bit more. We ate in a local restaurant, drank more beer in the squares of the old town and once again I joined the passeggiata but this time I was able to do so in true Italian style, with good friends. The evening drew to close on the roof-top terrace above Basil and Liz’s flat in the very heart of the old town where we could look east toward the sea and from where I was able to contemplate the final morning of cycling towards Brindisi itself.

About the author
Andrew P. Sykes was born and grew up in the small town of Elland in the foothills of the Pennines in West Yorkshire. He studied for a degree in mathematics at the University of York and immediately after graduation went to work in London for a firm of city accountants. The world of auditing was not however for him and in 1993 he left the U.K to go and work in France, initially in the tourist industry and then for four years teaching English in the Loire Valley city of Tours. He returned to the U.K. in 1999 to train as a secondary school teacher of French at the University of Reading. He still lives in the town and can currently be found working as the Head of Modern Languages at a secondary school in South Oxfordshire. You may well spot him each morning and each evening during term time cycling to work through the picturesque countryside that lies between the Thames Valley towns of Reading and Henley-on-Thames.

You can follow Andrew on his blog CyclingEurope.org and on Twitter @apsykes. Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie is a book, you can buy it on Amazon (paperback) or on Completely Novel (ebook).

Read also:
- First post: Matera, your little holiday retreat in the south of Italy
- Second post: A bike trip in Puglia in the middle of trullos

I have selected a nice, small and cheap house for your holidays in Salento, Puglia: Negroamaro House (ID: GU02). It is located into the negroamaro wine region in the south of Puglia. The area is one of the most important area for the wine production based on the negroamaro grape and just 20 km distant from the primitivo wine region. As you may understand, the house is in the middle of a wine country landscape surrounded by ancient olive trees. And it is not distant from Lecce, only 19 km. To see where the house is, find “Guagnano” on Google Map.

The Negroamaro House has: an entrance with 2 beds and air-conditioning; a master bedroom with wardrobe, tv color and air-conditioning; a dining room with a table where you can eat, a kitchen cabinet, a fireplace and air-conditioning; a fully equipped kitchen with a washing mashine too; a bathroom. The garden is on the back of the house and is perfect to eat outdoor during the warm seasons. You can have a better idea of the house having a look at my previous video and pictures.

The house is available during all the year. The fireplace is perfect for your winter evenings with your family or your travel friends. While, in summer you can go to the best sandy beaches in Porto Cesareo in 15 minutes by car. Ask me, I can tell a lot of information on this house and this part of Puglia called Salento. In addition, if you want I can organise half-day wine tours to the best wineries which make great red wines all around Guagnano. I am waiting for you to discover the real Puglia!

I hadn’t in mind to write a post about a tipical Puglia Christmas gift untill I read this post A “Gift” from the Italy Blogging Roundtable: Join us! on Italylogue.com. The post is a public invitation to all the bloggers to write a post on the topic of gifts / presents / regali, not limited to just Christmas gifts. The promoters of this initiative wrote as following:

We’d love to hear your take on the subject of gifts/presents/regali as it relates to Italy

It was the perfect input for me to write my post for this online initiative which is called Italy Blogging Roundtable: “My seasonal Puglia gift basket to the rest of the world”. My gift is the one on the previous picture, a gift basket prepared in about 20 minutes. I imagined that I had no time to think about it, let’s say that it was a last minute gift. So, I prepared it with some of the seasonal products and fruits I usually get from my garden and some traditional other products you can find only here in Salento, south of Puglia. The result is what I call a seasonal gift basket made by 9 products to start discovering my region with a special focus on its great culinary culture and tradition. Here’s what you will find in this homemade gift basket.

1. Wine bottle
A white wine made by my father. It’s a blend of several white local grapes which we cultivate in a small piece of land in the Negroamaro wine region.

2. Quarta coffe
A pack of Quarta coffe, a coffe roasting of Lecce. In my opinion, Quarta is the best coffe of this part of Puglia. You have to know that almost each big italian city has its local coffe roasting, so you will not find the same coffe in Naples or Rome, for example. You will enjoy this aspect of Italy a lot! Make this coffe with a moka, it’s perfect.

3. Mandarines
Some mandarines of the tree I have in my garden: now it is their season.

4. Dried figs
We make these dried figs in summer, we leave them under the sun, then we put an almond inside and bake them: delicious!

5. Honeydew melon
One honeydew melon that we pick in summer and save for the winter.

6. Oranges
Some oranges of the trees of a friend of mine: it is their season too.

7. Marmalade
A jam pot of marmalade made by my mother.

8. Dried beans
Perfect to make a beans puree with green vegetables, a tipical Puglia recipe.

9. Puglia & Basilicata’s Lonely Planet giude
One of the best available in english travel guide to discover my region.

The beauty of this gift basket is its seasonal and homemade side. Can you imagine how it could be in winter and in summer with other fresh fruits and more products? In addition, it is a slow life gift, very good to taste and environmental friendly thanks to its essence: to be local. Will you like a gift basket like this? Let me know!

To follow the initiative Italy Blogging Roundtable you have to follow Alexandra of ArtTrav, Gloria of At Home in Tuscany, Rebecca of Brigolante, Melanie of Italofile and Jessica of WhyGo Italy. This Puglia gift basket idea is especially for them!

This is the second of three extracts from “Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie”, a book written by Andrew P. Sykes about his journey along the Eurovelo 5, a long-distance cycle route from London to Brindisi, in the heel of Italy, Puglia. In this post Andrew arrives in Valle d’Itria, that part of Puglia where trullos are. He describes his stops in Gioia del Colle and Alberobello.

By the time I was ready to hit the road, it was still only 10 o’clock and few tourists or indeed locals had yet to venture out onto the streets. It was a Saturday and all that passeggiata night-time strolling can certainly take it out of you so I left the residents of Matera, both temporary and permanent, to their beds and caves, made my way out of town, returned to the main road and headed east. Actually, my route was initially north-east as coming to Matera had been a little detour off the general route towards Cisternino and Brindisi but it wasn’t too long before I crossed the provincial border taking me from Matera to Bari and in doing so back into Puglia for proper. I had, if you remember, rolled Reggie’s tyres into Puglia on the previous day when I had stopped at Spinazzola’s unfriendly service station and paused at Gravina-in-Puglia’s only open purveyor of nutrition, an ice-cream parlour. But here I was doing it properly, heading into my final region of the trip for good. The terrain was just as flat, the heat just as intense and the towns just as distant from each other as they had been on the previous day. At Santeramo in Colle, my direction changed and for the remainder of that day’s cycling I would be heading along one long, continuous road due east towards Cisternino, a journey only punctuated with the occasional medium-sized town at which I would pause for quick pit-stop.

Gioia del Colle
The first of these was Gioia del Colle some 30km from Matera where I stopped for lunch. The people of southern Italy had now been roused. The temptation of not having to go to work but having a car sitting in your driveway with a fully-functioning horn was too much for many and they had jumped in their Fiats, Lancias and Alfa Romeos and congregated along the main road of the town where they were keen to keep testing them repeatedly at any given opportunity. In fairness, many of the annoying blasts that morning were emanating from a wedding procession and it’s not just the Italians who think it appropriate to celebrate the nuptials of a happy couple by disturbing the peace of every other person in the vicinity of the wedding in such a headache-inducing way. Practically every other nation on earth has adopted the same thoughtless ritual. Apart from the British. At last, an aspect of our misery-ridden lives at which we excel! It can only, however, be a matter of time before we succumb …

Alberobello
After having failed to come up with more than just this one reason to spend the rest of your life living in the UK, I continued heading east and my next stop was the town of Alberobello. If you translate the name of the famous Italian operatic composer Giuseppe Verdi into English you get the rather prosaic ‘Joe Green’ and you wonder how, with a name like that, he ever made it further than playing the recorder at primary school. If, however, you translate the name Alberobello into English you get ‘beautiful tree’ which although as equally simple as ‘Joe Green’, only adds to its beauty. And Alberobello is another stunning destination in southern Italy. That said, it’s not really as famed for its trees as it is for its trullo buildings. These are small, square, white-washed houses with conical roofs made from piled-up stones. They are distinctly Puglian and you can find them dotted all across the countryside in this corner of the world. The thing that makes Alberobello stand out from the tourist-attracting crowd is that there are so many of them all in one place.

It was actually my second visit to Alberobello; I had explored the town on my visit to see Basil and Liz some three-years before my cycling efforts of 2010. At the time, Basil had explained that one theory as to why the dry-stone buildings were built as they were was so that they could be easily dismantled if a tax inspector was thought to be passing. No house equalled no tax. It seems a little excessive to say the least to go to the bother of tearing down your house to avoid such a fiscal imposition from the authorities but perhaps, if the story is true, it says much about the levels of tax at the time. Whatever the motivation for them being built as they were, the result is that now, just as similar working-class dwellings in Matera have become beacons for modern-day tourists, so have the trulli of Puglia.

Unfortunately, just as the relative urban tranquillity of Gioia del Colle had been somewhat disturbed by the wedding procession driving repeatedly up and down the town’s main street, the even greater tranquillity of Alberobello was even more disturbed by the alarm of a car that had been parked at the very bottom of one of the lanes funnelling visitors up and through the trulli buildings. There are few things that can make you yearn for someone to come along and peep their horn for no good reason, but a car alarm repeatedly sounding its dull, monotone and loud cry is one of them. For the half an hour or so that I stayed, the entire atmosphere was ruined by some idiot who had never seen fit to have the sensitivity settings on the alarm adjusted appropriately. He or she was no doubt happily quaffing fine food and wine on the other side of town oblivious to the fact that for everyone on my side of town the visit to Alberobello would forever be associated with the racket of that car. The only saving grace was to think that perhaps the owner of the car wasn’t sitting on the terrace of a restaurant on the other side of town but sitting on a similar terrace on this side of town, suffering the same attack on their ears as we were. Had earplugs been available, I might have been tempted to stay and observe the hopefully violent retribution meted out on the owner’s return by the poor unfortunate family who had chosen to sit down for a meal at the restaurant next to the car prior to the alarm starting.

About the author
Andrew P. Sykes was born and grew up in the small town of Elland in the foothills of the Pennines in West Yorkshire. He studied for a degree in mathematics at the University of York and immediately after graduation went to work in London for a firm of city accountants. The world of auditing was not however for him and in 1993 he left the U.K to go and work in France, initially in the tourist industry and then for four years teaching English in the Loire Valley city of Tours. He returned to the U.K. in 1999 to train as a secondary school teacher of French at the University of Reading. He still lives in the town and can currently be found working as the Head of Modern Languages at a secondary school in South Oxfordshire. You may well spot him each morning and each evening during term time cycling to work through the picturesque countryside that lies between the Thames Valley towns of Reading and Henley-on-Thames.

You can follow Andrew on his blog CyclingEurope.org and on Twitter @apsykes. Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie is a book, you can buy it on Amazon as a paperback or as an eBook

This guest post is by Keith Greenough. In October this year I visited Puglia for the first time. The aim of my trip was not just to enjoy the wonderful place but also to capture the beautiful landscape, old towns and people with my camera. I am a photographer based in the UK.

Alberobello in the southern region of Puglia was the base for my visit. This area is characterised by its trulli dwellings, which are of drywall (mortarless) construction – an ancient method which is still in use in this region. They are built with roughly worked limestone boulders collected from neighbouring fields and their unmistakable feature is their pyramidal, domed or conical roofs. They are fascinating and unique!

The area also has many historic towns with dazzling whitewashed walls, including Locorotondo, Cisternino, Ostuni and Ceglie Messapica. The narrow stone-paved streets in the old town centres are labyrinths of pretty balconies, stone staircases and archways. The people are very friendly. Some invited me into their homes and despite my limited italian I learned much about their lives and personal histories. Ancient gateways guard the entrances to the towns and gardens overflow onto the streets with their bright colours. On the rooftops and from balconies clean washing floats in the wind adding even more colour to the scene.

Close by is the World Heritage Site at Matera. The ancient town or Sassi di Matera (meaning “stones of Matera”) is a magical place. Many of the “houses” are really only caverns, and some streets rest on the rooftops of other houses. The town sits on the slope of the ravine created by a river that is now a small stream. It definitely lives up to its World Heritage status.

I also made a brief trip to Lecce with its rich Baroque architecture. It is for good reason that Lecce is sometimes called “The Florence of the South”. Next time I will spend more time in this great city. Puglia charmed me with its rich variety and welcoming people. I can’t wait to go back!

Keith Greenough
My name is Keith Greenough and I am a photographer and student. I am studying for a degree in photography at the Open College of the Arts. My website showcases my work through a series of Galleries. I have a particular interest in photographic typologies. My work spans portraiture, interiors and architecture, and landscape. Keith Greenough Photographer

This is the first of three extracts from “Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie”, a book written by Andrew P. Sykes about his journey along the Eurovelo 5, a long-distance cycle route from London to Brindisi, in the heel of Italy, Puglia. In this post Andrew stops in Matera, the city of sassi and the land of The Passion of The Christ of Mel Gibson. Your little holiday retreat in the south of Italy, as Andrew suggest to us.

I had started out with eleven pristine 1:200,000 maps bundled neatly together with a thick rubber band. I envisaged that I would finish the trip with eleven rather ragged-looking maps bundled not-so-neatly together in similar fashion. But it didn’t quite work out that way. Once I had cycled off the end of a particular map I was more than happy to screw it up and throw it into the nearest bin. There was something far more satisfying in doing it that way rather than putting the map back at the bottom of the stack. I had also taken to cutting off any unnecessary parts of the map that I was using the result being that all that I was left with in the hotel room in Matera on my penultimate morning of the trip was a thin strip of paper showing the route due east from Matera to Brindisi.

The distance between the two was only about 130km, the terrain would be flat and the roads direct. I had already cycled more than that distance on at least half a dozen occasions in the previous 28 days of cycling so I could have been dipping my toes into the Adriatic by some time later that day. However, my friends Basil and Liz lived in a small town called Cisternino about 50km west of Brindisi so it made more sense to cut the final leg of my journey into two, pausing overnight in Cisternino and then making my triumphal entrance into Brindisi on Sunday morning. But before doing any of that, I needed to spend a little more time exploring Mel Gibson’s film set so, after checking out of the hotel and paying only 60€ for my room (I had a single and the 80€ tariff had been for a double – result!) I returned to the Belvedere Luigi Guerricchio viewpoint to study the Sassi of Matera in a little more detail.

What are the sassi of Matera?
The word sassi translates as stones but this was no pile of discarded rubble. The area is a World Heritage Site and UNESCO describe the Sassi as ‘…an outstanding example of a rock-cut settlement, adapted perfectly to its geomorphological setting and its ecosystem and exhibiting continuity over more than two millennia. They represent an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement and land use showing the evolution of a culture that has maintained over time a harmonious relationship with its natural environment’. You can see why UNESCO have never branched out into the guide book market. Basically, the Sassi are a bunch of houses built into the rock of a gorge, one on top of another over many, many centuries. The resulting chaotic mish-mash of buildings and lanes is fascinating to a passing tourist but can’t be anything but a vision of hell to the local postman who must scratch his head every time he arrives in town. The view was truly amazing and there was so much to look at; it was the architectural equivalent of a Where’s Wally? cartoon (without, as far as I could see, Wally) with an air of repetition but where, on closely inspection, not a house, roof, wall, window or terrace was exactly the same. The original troglodyte dwellings were dug out of the soft tufa rock, a kind of limestone that was also used to build the houses and churches that now cover each side of the valley. The soft light brown colour of this rock made the entire place shine like a new penny under the gaze of the morning sun. I had immediately thought I had stepped into the Holy Land on arrival in the old part of Matera on the previous evening and this impression was only being embedded by what I could see now.

It was why Mel and his crew had come here to film The Passion of The Christ but also why many other film makers had passed this way rather than to more unstable Palestine or Israel to film their own biblically-themed oeuvres. That said, one film that was made in Matera which, despite its name, didn’t have a direct link to the time of Jesus was Francesco Rosi’s interpretation of Carlo Levi’s 1945 novel Cristo si è Fermato a Eboli or Christ Stopped at Eboli. Levi’s book is autobiographical and recounts his experiences of being a doctor in an impoverished town in southern Italy in the mid 1930s to where he had been exiled for his anti-fascist views. The notion of Christ stopping at Eboli, a town near Salerno in the west of Italy, was used to emphasise how in the very south of the Italy, life had changed little since medieval times with people leading abandoned, primitive lives. This is certainly how people lived in the Sassi of Matera until the government started to forcibly re-house families (partly as a result of the impact of Carlo Levi’s book) in more modern apartment blocks away from the squalor of the valley in the 1950s. These were no doubt the ones that I had seen on my arrival in town from the west on the previous day. But some people did stay put in the sassi and it wasn’t until the 1990s when someone at the town council woke up one day and realised that they could have a tourist gold mine sitting in the very heart of their town that the boutique hotels started to move in.

I was sceptical as to whether I would be able to get any closer to the buildings of the sassi without having to wheel Reggie down countless flights of twisting steps. With his dodgy back wheel in mind I wanted to avoid such a tortuous and bumpy mini adventure. In addition, I was unsure as to how I would be able to return to the top of the valley once I had made it to the bottom; if this meant re-negotiating the same steep steps, I would have to be content with the view from the panoramic terrace. That said, I could see cars in one of the lanes below me so I decided to give it a try. If I met any steps I would simply have to turn back.

After several minutes of twisting and turning lanes which were mercifully stair-free, I was able to get Reggie and myself to the other side of the valley and then to the bottom of the settlement from where it was possible to inspect the buildings from much closer quarters. The lanes had actually been well-cobbled and everywhere I looked were shiny BMWs and Mercedes cars. My initial scepticism had been misplaced to say the least; who else would be frequenting the chic hotels, bars and restaurants to be found in the sassi other than the middle classes with their big, air-conditioned vehicles? A well-paved access road was probably the first thing that had been built once the decision to assist the area in dragging itself out of abject poverty had been made. It was interesting to note however, that the transition from working-class slum to top holiday destination was still very much a work-in-progress with many buildings, especially on the periphery of the area still derelict with boards up stating that they were for sale. So, if you fancy a little holiday retreat in the south of Italy with cracking views, a fantastic cellar in which to keep your wine cool and an interesting back story to boot, you know where to go. Just don’t expect your birthday cards to be delivered on time by a cheerful postie.

About the author
Andrew P. Sykes was born and grew up in the small town of Elland in the foothills of the Pennines in West Yorkshire. He studied for a degree in mathematics at the University of York and immediately after graduation went to work in London for a firm of city accountants. The world of auditing was not however for him and in 1993 he left the U.K to go and work in France, initially in the tourist industry and then for four years teaching English in the Loire Valley city of Tours. He returned to the U.K. in 1999 to train as a secondary school teacher of French at the University of Reading. He still lives in the town and can currently be found working as the Head of Modern Languages at a secondary school in South Oxfordshire. You may well spot him each morning and each evening during term time cycling to work through the picturesque countryside that lies between the Thames Valley towns of Reading and Henley-on-Thames.

You can follow Andrew on his blog CyclingEurope.org and on Twitter @apsykes. Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie is a book, you can buy it on Amazon as a paperback or as an eBook

First picture of the gallery | Paola Sucato (ci_polla)
Other pictures | Pietro & Silvia (googlisti)