You see it long before you reach it: a pale stone crown sitting alone on a hilltop above the Murge plateau, visible for miles across the olive groves and wheat fields of northern Puglia. Castel del Monte was built in the 1240s for Emperor Frederick II, the brilliant and restless Hohenstaufen ruler whom contemporaries called the wonder of the world. It is perfectly octagonal, with eight octagonal towers at the corners and an octagonal courtyard in the middle, and nobody really knows what it was for. It has no moat, no stables, no obvious defensive purpose, which has fed centuries of theories about astronomy, geometry and mysticism. UNESCO listed it in 1996, and Italians carry it in their pockets: it is on the back of the one-cent euro coin.
The landscape around it belongs to the Alta Murgia National Park, a limestone plateau of rocky pastures, dry-stone walls, sinkholes and sparse almond trees. It is a stark, open place, especially in high summer when the grass turns blond and the heat shimmers on the road. In spring, wild orchids and poppies brighten the fields, and kestrels hunt overhead.
The ride in is part of the appeal. From Andria or Corato the roads climb gently across the plateau, mostly straight with long bends, and the castle grows on the skyline the whole way. Traffic is light, but tour buses gather in high season, and the wind can be strong and gusty across the exposed tops. The final approach is controlled, and visitors usually leave vehicles in a car park below and walk or take a shuttle up, so be ready for that. Golden hour, when the stone glows honey-coloured, is when the place is at its best.
Fuel and food are found in the nearby towns. Corato, with forty-six thousand people, and Andria, with nearly a hundred thousand, have all services, and Minervino Murge is a smaller hill town with views across the plain. Andria is said to be the home of burrata, the creamy-centred mozzarella, so it would be rude not to try it. Puglia's olive oil is superb, and orecchiette with turnip tops is the local pasta dish to order.