Smurf Huts!

One of our stops was to Alberobello, city of Smurf huts. I had seen photos of the area, and had always had the impression that it was at most one or two streets of whitewashed cuteness. As it turns out, I was completely wrong in this supposition. There are "trulli" scattered about the countryside in isolated plots, there are trulli in construction (yes, they are still used today as an architectural style), and there are trulli in two different styles on different sides of the main road of Alberobello.

Yeah, pretty sure that space to the right is a toilet

The side of town where the trulli remain the natural stone is still largely occupied as housing, and there are no tourist shops (or other shops, for that matter...at least, not as far as I could see). The whitewashed side is now mostly uninhabited, and many of the trulli are owned by tourist shop owners. Both sides have narrow streets on a moderate slope, clearly designed for at most horse traffic. There is one two-story trullo: the "sovereign house," which was actually constructed for the priest but is now a museum. My visit to the museum paid off, because I learned that they were of more recent origin than I'd assumed: 1700s, and that they were originally built for purposes of tax evasion. 

As it was explained in the museum, the ruler of the time had decreed that no more villages were to be built without hefty taxation (this bit was somewhat unclear, I have to admit), but people wanted to live in the area or already had land or whatever. So someone had the bright idea of building "temporary huts" that wouldn't be taxable because they weren't really "houses," nor would it become a "village" for the purposes of taxation. See? No mortar! This is a temporary structure, right?? And this is why the original trulli were completely dry-stacked. Current trulli are now made with mortar and some even appear to be poured concrete with stone facing (in my observation from the bus). Regardless, they were completely adorable and definitely worth the visit. Even the church was built in the style of  a trullo! I was surprised by the shape, too: I had assumed these were cylindrical huts with conical roofs. In fact, they're square or rectangular huts with conical roofs, sometimes multiple roofs (one for each room, in essence). Just delightful.

Love,

Alexandra