Enroute Atrani to Ostuni June 25th & 26th

A few quick pictures of the spots we stopped at on our move from the West Coast of Italy to the East Coast.

We left Atrani on the 25th of June and stopped in Matera overnight.  The Hotel we stayed at in Matera was a cave hotel.  The rooms are virtually cut out of the hills.  It was a very interesting city with many homes in the caves and a modern section with tall buildings and modern restaurants.

                                                           Matera during the day

                                                                 Our hotel room

                                                              Matera at night

Street near our hotel, the roads were so narrow that when we entered the area we thought we may have driven into a pedestrian walk but were assured it was the road and then we met another car going in the opposite direction and I had to back up close to 300 meters before I could let him pass.

The day after we stopped in an area that is famous for its Trulli houses.  These are stone houses that were built in the 15th century.  And as part of their permission to build houses from the local Lords the homes had to be built without using mortar.  Hence the Lord allowed the houses as long as they could be dismantled and the ground returned to the exact way it was before the homes were built.  There were still a lot of these homes still being lived in, of course many had extensions built onto them.  A town we stopped in, Alberbello, is famous for it's Trulli houses.  Most of them are now tourist shops but a few have been converted into rental units where people can stay for short term visits.  Many are very well maintained and look quite nice, however they are extremely small and the normal rent for a Trulli was about $800.00 a week.

The streets in the Trulli village are very similiar and they wind back and forth, we got turned around and had a very difficult time finding our rental car after our visit.

                    Outside a typical Trulli, the roof is flat stones laid one on top of the other.

  A typical street, every place is white with a grey stone roof many of the homes have symbols painted on the roof

                                              A typical street with many tourist shops

                                       A resendential street people were living in these Trulli's

                                                          A wall within the Trulli area

              Inside a Trulli gift shop, very small and the whole interior is an open concept.  Not one bit of mortar or nails was used in the construction.

A Trulli that was available for rental on a tourist visit, they were fully furnished and appeared quite nice.