A stay with local character in Puglia

Puglia has an architecture you recognise at once. In the Itria Valley, around Alberobello, Locorotondo and Cisternino, trulli with conical roofs of dry-laid stone stand among olive trees and low walls; on the plains, fortified masserie gather courtyards, chapels and towers behind thick whitewashed walls; in the old towns, houses of pale limestone line narrow lanes. What these stays share is a building of their own with that local character – sometimes a trullo, sometimes a masseria or a historic house. Sleeping inside such walls changes the feel of the days: cool rooms in the heat, light falling through small windows, a courtyard for the evening.

Living inside stone

Old walls in Puglia are thick and their rooms often small, vaulted or domed. Part of the pleasure is that sense of shelter – and in many places the old structure sits alongside newer rooms, so each stay combines the two in its own way.

Days between olive groves and the sea

From the Itria Valley the Adriatic is not far, and the white towns on the hills are worth an afternoon each. Evenings are for a long dinner and the smell of warm stone after sunset.