More deepest Puglia – Martina Franca and Alberbello

Today I continued my exploration of deepest Puglia with visits to two more hilltop towns with old city centres. The first was Martina Franca, the biggest city in the area (albeit with a population of only 49,000). I found it similar to Cisternino – very picturesque with a well-defined old town which contained winding streets, churches, and a pretty main square. It was also not too busy, and was another nice place to happily lose oneself in for a couple of hours after a coffee on the main piazza.

I thought that Cisternino’s small streets were more interesting, but Martina Franca had the more impressive monumental buildings, including a large church and a palace.

Next, I visited yet another hilltop village – Locorotundo, which I found to be more like Ostuni. It had a picturesque hilltop old town, visible for miles around from the surrounding plains, but its centre was too small to get properly lost in, and too crowded to get a feeling of discovering something for oneself. I took a couple of photos to prove I had been there before returning to Cisternino for dinner.

The next day I woke up early to make the four-hour trip back to Salerno to return my hire car. On the way I made a short early-morning stop at Alberobello, a small town known for its remarkable number of trulli – 1,600 apparently. These earned the town its listing as a UNESCO world heritage site, and a place on any tourist’s list of things to see in Puglia. The trulli were indeed a spectacular and strange sight, and I spent half an hour exploring them.

I looked at my watch, and wondered briefly whether I should not stop here longer to explore more deeply. But I had a deadline to return the hire car before the rental office in Salerno closed for its 1pm siesta break, so I decided to drive on. Leaving at that time turned out to be a good decision. On my way back to the car park, I crossed streams of other visitors heading the other way, and as I drove out of the town, I passed a veritable armada of tour buses driving in. It was clear that by 9.30 the small town would be overrun.

My drive back to Salerno proved challenging. Not because of the driving habits of local drivers, which were actually quite good, but because of the crazy rules imposed by the authorities. There were frequent road works (but no sign of anyone working) which were an excuse to limit the speed on perfectly good stretches of road to 50km/h (30 miles/hour) or even lower. It seemed that the government has bought thousands of “max 50km/h” signs that they did not know what to do with. The local drivers ignored these ridiculous limits and drove at an appropriate speed for the road conditions – often at twice or even three times the advertised limit. The rare speed cameras were well advertised in advance by signs and could also be spotted from far away by watching for when the drivers ahead braked suddenly. As a law-abiding foreign bear, I had an uncomfortable choice – obey the speed limit and cause a big queue of angry drivers to build up behind me, or drive like the locals. I won’t reveal my decision but let it be said that I arrived at Salerno in a slightly stressed condition just in time to return my car.

From Salerno I took the train to Naples for the last two nights of my Italian trip. I had enjoyed Puglia but thought that I had seen enough pretty villages and trulli and was yearning to experience the excitement of a big city once again. Whilst not always easy, Naples turned out to be exactly what I needed, and an exact opposite to the cute small towns of the last few days. Check out my blog tomorrow to find out more!

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