Apulia is full of oddities, but nothing in it looks as unlikely as a trullo. These are round or square dry-stone houses topped with conical roofs of grey limestone slabs, laid without any mortar, and the town of Alberobello has well over a thousand of them. The Trullo Sovrano, the Sovereign Trullo, is the biggest and the grandest, a two-storey building on a hillside square at the edge of the old quarter, and it was built in the eighteenth century for a wealthy family. Inside, it houses a small museum of everyday life, rooms divided by curtains and arches, and a dome that rises overhead like an upturned bowl.
The method is ancient and simple. Farmers cleared the stony fields of the Itria valley and used the stones to build walls and shelters. A trullo could be taken apart quickly, and the old story says that was the point, because the local lords used it to dodge taxes on permanent buildings. Whether that is entirely true or not, the town today has two zones of them, the Rione Monti on a hillside and the quieter Aia Piccola, and it is inscribed as a World Heritage site. Painted symbols on the roofs, in white, are believed to be good-luck marks.
Riding around Alberobello is quite gentle. The Itria valley is a landscape of low rolling hills, dry-stone walls, olive groves, almond trees, and small farmhouses, with the roads running straight and then curling softly between fields. It is not a mountain road, but it has charm, and the traffic is light except in summer weekends. Go in May or late September, when the light is good and the crowds are manageable, and avoid midday heat in August.
Locorotondo and Martina Franca lie nearby, the first a circular white town and the second a baroque one, and both make good lunch stops. With nine thousand people, Alberobello has fuel and plenty of places to eat; try orecchiette with turnip tops, burrata or a glass of the local white from Locorotondo. Visit the lanes early in the morning, before the coaches, and you will have the stones almost to yourself.