Locorotondo. This area is full of Trulli, the conical structures originally built by the peasant workers from the stones that they cleared from the fields that they worked. Without adding any materials and since they had no windows and because they could pull out the capstone and the place would fall into a pile of rocks that didn’t look like a house, they could escape paying any taxes on a dwelling. Interesting structures and oddly appealing in a gnomey, smurphy, nisse kind of way. On their own they aren’t very big, but when you mash 4 or 5 of them together you can almost make a proper, though slightly awkward, house out of them.

It is the time of Lent, March 6 – April 18 this year, and in this part of Italy there is a charming tradition known as La Caremma or Quaresima  and a couple of other names in other parts of the area. She is the widow or sister of Carnivale.  She is supposed to scare the children into being true to their Lenten sacrifices. She is manifest in the form of an ugly old lady or witch. She usually caries a distaff and a spinning spindle and also has an orange with 7 feathers stuck in it. One feather being removed each week between Lent and Easter. She is hung in effigy from balconies and light posts and on Holy Thursday before Easter the dolls are gathered and burned! representing the resurrection. The first time I spotted one of these witches hanging in the middle of an intersection I was a little perplexed to say the least…

Lunch at a place called Curduu… most of us order the ‘menu of the day’ … a little of everything. Oop.

5 courses. Mozz, eggplant and capacollo then something like a bit of lasagna then capolini and broccoli rab for pasta… cognilio (rabbit) for secondi and lemon torte for desert. Oh… and wine. A local bottle this time, cab, malbec, merlot blend. Quite tasty.

Locorotondo is a very cute, very southern little town. We notice a lot of for sale signs in the area. The landscape is stunning. Very different than Tuscany or the north. It is rugged and rocky. Palm trees and prickly pear cactus. HUGE olive trees and small vineyards… ‘Undiscovered’ by the tourism world at this point. As they realize the potential for tourism and tidy the area up accordingly maybe develop a service mindset, that will change I suspect.