What I didn't realize is the history behind Perugina. Baci (kisses) were first made in Perugia, located about halfway between Rome and Florence, in 1922. According to the now 101-year-old company, Perugina truffles are made by 'blending chocolate with a ground hazelnut cream, mixing in some chopped hazelnuts, crowning the confection with a whole hazelnut and then covering it in fine precious dark chocolate." One of the most popular chocolates in the world, Perugina sells half a billion baci every year. I'm the first to admit I'm not a dark chocolate guy but these were tasty.
As we stared to walk out of Bari Vecchia we heard, "Hey Anziani!" It was a young man sitting in a car. He happened to be in church with us yesterday but we didn't see or know him. We talked to him a little while before making our way toward the bus station. I was sad to leave Bari. What a wonderful place! What wonderful people! Once we got on board, it started to rain and really didn't stop all day.
The destination was Alberobello (Beautiful Tree), only about 35 miles from Bari. It's a place I visited back in the day and was excited to show it to Lori. It's really unlike any other old town in all of Italy or anyplace in the world, that I know of anyway. First settled in the sixth century, the ruler allowed families to farm the land in exchange for ten percent of their crops. Fast forward to the 15th century, when the Kingdom of Naples imposed tributes on new urban settlements, including this one. Count Giangirolamo II, who oversaw the land and would be subject to those taxes, ordered the peasants to construct houses in a certain way. Having an abundance of limestone, they built unique round, stone buildings with self-supporting domed or coned roofs. Since they told to not use of mortar so removing a keystone would cause the homes to collapse into and crumble into a pile of stones, thus saving them from being taxed for having dwellings when taxpayers came calling. When the taxpayers left, the peasants would then rebuild and the count avoided being taxed. The unique teepee-like buildings are called trulli. Not only are they still standing, but we had reservations to stay in two of them.
As we pulled into Alberbello, the rain continued to pelt down. We each carried packs on our backs and didn't want them to get soaked. Ron had an umbrella so he was good but it looked like the rest of us would get a bit soggy. However, April to the rescue! She pulled three plastic ponchos out of a pack pocket. We pulled them over our heads, bodies and packs and we were good to go.
Since it was too early to check into our trulli, we will had several hours to kill. We needed to find somewhere dry where we could sit...and eat! And with the 1 p.m.-4 p.m. nationwide shutdown upon us, we were worried that may not happen. But as we wandered up a street we saw La Cantina Ristorante. Not only was it open but we were invited in to have a seat. We took off our panchos, shook off the water, stacked our packs in a corner and entered. Our timing was perfect as several other small groups of people soon followed but were told the wait would be long as there was no more room.
La Cantina is a 65-year-old family-owned restaurant, passed down from father to son, located in a small room that used to be a cellar of a 19th century building. Its arched ceilings are in line with the architecture of Alberobello. And the food? Well, in my opinion, it was so, so good. I started off with spathetti aglio olio peperoncino (artiginal spaghetti with olive oil, chili pepper, garlic and lemon although it was also topped parmagian cheese and some flakes of bacon). Man oh man oh man! This was the best pasta dish I'd had yet - fresh pasta noodles packed with flavor! I followed that up with seasonal fresh fruit and a fresh salad. As is the Italian way, we were served in such a way to take our time to savor our multi-course meal over about two and a half hours. The thing is, nobody else in the restaurant seemed to be in a hurry to go anywhere either. A young woman, who appeared to be of Asian ethnicity, was by herself at the table across from us. Like us, she was capturing images of her food but doing so with a small video camera.
After lunch, we walked Ron and April to their Airbnb apartment in old town and then made our way to our apartment, which was cozy, cute and quite amazing. It basically had three sections - the kitchen, living space and bedroom/bathroom - with short stone archways between leading from the main living space to the other two. I'm not very tall but these archways weren't built with a guy 5' 10 1/2' in mind. The ceilings above the living space and bedroom also had that unique cone feature, although these were built with mortar. The shower didn't have much room at all but then again, Italian bathrooms are like that basically everywhere.
There was one thing you had to be on on your toes about or you may lose them. When you stepped out the front door, you'd better look both ways before doing so because Vicolo Roppo (Crooked Alley) was a narrow, busy street with cars buzzing by some 18 inches from the front door threshold. If I was commissioner of the street-naming police, I'd call the place Vicolo Pericoloso de Morte (Dangerous Alley of Death). Sure seems more applicable. Still, innumerable streets across Italy are exactly like that.
We coordinated a rallying time and location with Ron and April and then headed out to explore the hilly, narrow, scenic alleyways. Every intersection offered unique views and glimpses into the past.
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| Church of Sant'Antonio |
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| Church of Sant'Antonio |
We took a lot of photos, visited shops and even bought a few souvenirs. One of them is our own miniature trullo hut that somehow survived being toted around in my backpack the next week-plus and made it home where it now greets visitors in our entryway.
Another was in shop owned by an older man featuring some of the most beautiful woodwork I'd seen. He made different creations out of olive wood - a rich, hard, dense and heavy wood with extremely vibrant wood grain. Lori showed great interest as we entered and I knew why. You see, Lori has a thing for baskets and cutting boards, and there was a whole mini room full of attractive cutting boards in different sizes and shapes. But she was hesitant to buy one because of the price (90 euros). I said, "You know you like it. You know you want one. If you won't get one for you then let me get one for you." She relented and I told the shop owner that we would purchase a cutting board if he would be in a picture with it and with us. Deal!
Another shop sold trinkets in the front but had a sign urging visitors to go out back. Once there, we saw a fairy tale-like, miniature model of the old town with thousands upon thousands of small pieces of rock. And I thought big leggo sculptures were impressive. It must have taken this person(s) years to build the Alberobello replica.
Our next stop was at the Trullo Siamese, one of the older and unique trulli in Alberbello. It features two centrally joined domes, one of which has a sun painted on its roof, two levels and no windows. It also has a story to go with it that goes like this: two brothers lived in the trullo together and fell in love with the same woman. She was promised to the older brother but ended up falling in love with the younger brother. The three lived together under the same room until it became too difficult to continue. Citing inheritance rights, the older brother decided to kick out the others. The younger brother rejected the declaration, divided the trullo in half and created a second, independent backdoor. If you ask me, it sounds like the perfect scenario, or should I say imperfect scenario, upon which to create a reality TV show.
We continued our city-wide stroll, taking photos and ducking in and out of shops to see the sights while avoiding raindrops. All that walking and talking and seeing and experiencing makes you hungry. And if not that, just being in Italy approaching dinnertime gave us another timely excuse to find something else yummy to eat. Luckily, we found a shop with four empty, dry chairs where we each ordered a different type of focaccia. Mine was sausage and mushroom.
To cap off the meal, we looked for and found a gelateria. Little did I know, but could it be that my search for the best gelato in Italy would knock my favored and beloved lemon out of the top stop? I ordered a combination of chocolato au latte (milk chocolate) and arachidi (peanut butter). Wow! I mean, WOW! So soft, so creamy, so flavorful. It was just so different than the tart, yumminess of lemon. This combination was just plan excellent! Was I ready to crown a winner on day-7? No, we still had a week to go. I knew the search would and had to continue.
As the rain continued to fall, we decided it was a good time to turn in early and get some rest. Plus, it was the only night of our trip that we didn't share the same Airbnb. Lori and I returned to our trullo, further explored it, turned on the TV for the first time, watched a couple of shows in Italian and enjoyed sleeping in living Italian history.
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| A photo of old Alberobello in our apartment |
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