A trullo by the sea

Trulli in the hills, trulli by the sea

The Valle d’Itria is a karst plateau, the Murgia of the trulli: white towns on the hills, around four hundred metres above sea level (Alberobello 428, Locorotondo 410, Martina Franca 431), woods of fragno oak, vineyards of white grapes, dry-stone walls running up and down. There are trulli by the thousand, and those of Alberobello have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. In summer the evenings are cool; in winter it is colder up there than on the coast.

Down here the landscape is different. The countryside is flat, the olive trees are bigger and older, and the horizon ends at the sea. There are trulli here too, but they are few, lower and wider, and nobody comes looking for them.

Valle d’Itria or the Ionian coast?

Where to stay in Puglia, then? It is not a contest. If you want the white towns, the masserie in the hills, dinners in Cisternino and cool August evenings, the Valle d’Itria is the right place. If the sea, for you, is not a day out but the rhythm of your day, and you want to see the trulli without sleeping among the coach parties, stay down here.

From Corni di Fiasco to the Valle d’Itria it is an hour by car. You go up for the day, have dinner in Cisternino or Martina Franca, and come back in the evening to sleep near the sea. Lecce is an hour away too, Matera an hour and three quarters: everything, with driving times, is on the map of the area.

And if you come out of season, the difference shows even more. In winter the Ionian coast is milder than the hills, the beaches are empty and you walk along the shore in a jumper. That is why from November to March we open the house for long stays, and in spring and autumn the sea is still, or already, there to swim in.

The Saracen trullo

Our trullo does not have the slender profile, the neatly shaped cone and the pinnacle on top that the photographs have taught you to expect. It is a trullo saraceno, a Saracen trullo: a single cone, low, made of the limestone of this countryside, a stone that is easy to work and that breathes.

Like all trulli it is built dry, without mortar: stones laid in ever-tighter rings until they close in a corbelled dome that holds itself up. Those who have studied this countryside point to the strip near the sea south-east of Taranto, between Lizzano, Torricella and Maruggio, as the area where trulli of this kind are thickest on the ground. They served as shelters from storms, and in summer, at harvest time, sometimes two families at a time slept in one.

Why they are called Saracen, nobody knows. Some point to a resemblance to Arab buildings, others to the memory of the pirates who landed on this coast. They remain guesses. What is certain is that you must never call it a trullo in front of anyone from the Valle d’Itria: for them, the only trulli are theirs. And we let them believe it, with a smile.

The real Saracens, the ones who came from the sea, are in the Stories of Maruggio and beyond.

What changes in your day

Put simply: from a trullo in the hills the sea is a day out; from here it is a break.

In the morning you go to the beach before breakfast, when the sand is still cool and at Campomarino there are only the fishermen and someone with a dog. You come back, have breakfast under the pergola, read by the pool.

In the afternoon the sea changes its face. With the tramontana it is a clear, flat sheet; with the scirocco come the waves and the surfers. Here the first question of the morning is not whether it will rain: it is which way the wind is blowing, and you choose your beach accordingly. More in the chapter “Scirocco or tramontana?”.

In the evening the sun goes down into the Ionian. On the Adriatic coast, at Polignano and Monopoli, the sun rises out of the sea; on this side it sets into it, and in winter, at Torre Ovo, you see it sink right into the water.

And then there are the small things: the salt that stays on your skin all the way home, the outdoor shower after the beach, the fish bought at the little harbour of Torre Colimena and cooked in the evening.

The house, in a few lines

Corni di Fiasco is a single-cone trullo restored between 2019 and 2024, with a stone house beside it: two bedrooms, one beneath the cone of the trullo, and one bathroom, for four guests plus one on a folding bed. Two hectares of private land with centuries-old olive trees, figs and almonds, and nothing shared. A private pool twelve metres by three and a half, 1.40 metres deep, designed with the old watering troughs of the masserie in mind. Air conditioning in every room, Wi-Fi, two covered verandas and a rooftop terrace looking out over the olive groves.

The sea can be seen in the distance, beyond the olive trees, and it is one minute away by car. And when you cannot see it, you can hear it: with the scirocco and a heavy sea, its rumble reaches the house loud and clear, like a distant storm that never ends. The rest, with photographs, is on the house page.

Beaches a few minutes away

The beaches are the reason this trullo is where it is.

Campomarino, one minute by car: the nearest beach, with the Parco Dune di Campomarino, 41 hectares of dunes and Mediterranean scrub to cross on the boardwalks, and the Spiaggia d’Ayala, a wild beach with no facilities and no noise.

Salina dei Monaci and Torre Colimena, ten minutes: the old saltpan where you watch the flamingos, and the beach in front of the tower.

San Pietro in Bevagna, fifteen minutes: a river, the Chidro, that reaches the sea with its water at eighteen to twenty degrees all year round.

Punta Prosciutto, twenty minutes: white sand, and shallow turquoise water for tens of metres. In summer, arrive early.

Porto Selvaggio, forty-five minutes: pine woods, rocky coves, and a path down to the sea.

Everything, with times and things to know, is on the page about beaches near Maruggio.