5 weeks!
Another day in Alberobello before we head south to Brindisi tomorrow for the ferry to Greece.
The campsite is next to a tennis club and they were partying until well past 1AM. Elsewhere there were fireworks and dogs barking well into the early hours. It’s not exactly peace and quiet on many of these campsites!
We hadn’t got much planned today so we had a leisurely start and then headed into Alberobello on our bikes at about 11.
The Trulli museum, largest Trulli house and the church were on our todo list today.
The largest Trullo is behind the church and cost €2 each to get in. There’s some interesting history on the house and it’s the only Trulli that has a second story. However, we thought the museum was actually bigger.
Sue then had a wander around the church while I sat outside and listened to a random tour guide tell a group how the church wasn’t actually finished, there should be a big dome poking out of the middle of it.
We then collected our bikes from outside the two storey Trullo and headed to the Museum.
On the way we pulled over so I could do some bike repairs. As we were coming into Alberobello my gears stopped working. I’d been playing around with the indexing while we were in Dubrovnik so it was probably a loose Bowden cable that I’d struggled to get as tight as I’d have liked.
And low-and-behold it had slipped. I hadn’t brought the bike repair kit (must try harder to make sure we have that with us when we cycle) but did have my trusty Leatherman Squirt, which goes everywhere with me. It was totally the wrong tool for the job, but when it’s the only tool you have, then you make do. A yank on the cable and a quick nip-up of the bolt and I was away again…
Once we got to the museum we decided we needed a sit down and a drink before the rigors of the museum, so headed down the hat street (see yesterday) to the main tourist square and had a couple of drinks each.
Then back up to the museum, where we got €1 discount on entry for staying in a local hotel (campsite) – just €3 each to get in.
The museum was fine, but TBH didn’t learn any more than can be found on Wikipedia. It was good to see how big the insides appeared though, a bit TARDIS like actually.
As you wander around the different houses and information signage you get slightly different twists on the history. But it seems the Trulli were popularized when a property tax was imposed and the Trulli, in their original form, were temporary structures that could be dismantled if the tax inspectors came. Another twist was that the inspectors wouldn’t believe people lived in them, but that seems less likely to me… any tax inspector would surely put their head inside and see whether people are living there or not.
View of the museum from the inner courtyard…
Here’s a few shots from the morning…
Then it was back on the bikes back to the campsite to get out of the heat.
The afternoon was punctuated by a conversation with a French woman who spoke no English. We think she must have initially thought we were part of her 15 string motorhome tour. But we managed to have a 10 minute chat with her as our brains scrambled to switch to French.
Once we’d had dinner and washed up we headed back into town to catch golden hour and see the Trulli lit up in the dark. But… we were both pooped by the time we’d wandered around for an hour or so, so skipped the lit houses and headed back to the van.
Here’s a few shot as we wandered around though…
So it’s off to Greece tomorrow. We’ve got a late night ferry from Brindisi to Igoumenista and we’ve paid extra for a cabin with an outside view. We probably won’t get a lot of sleep, but it’s better than trying to sleep in a chair and at least a few hours kip is better than nothing. Once in Greece we hopefully have two days on a campsite just outside of Igoumenista and then another ferry to Corfu.
Harry is just about to set out on Thestrals to “rescue” Sirius.
Leave a Comment