Yours Trulli Ostuni

Typical street in Ostuni

The town of Ostuni (about 33,000 inhabitants) is situated on the last hill of southern Murgia. Its old town, is unmistakable, blindingly white in colour against the dark green olive trees that dominate the area. The houses painted strictly white earned fantastic descriptions, such as the White City or Queen of Olives.

Ostuni is a fascinating tangle of narrow, winding streets, a succession of short, small squares and alleys, a labyrinth of mystery and wonder, which lead finally to the top of the hill, where stands the Cathedral, a wonderful synthesis of elements of Romanesque, Gothic and Venetian, which dominates the plain of olive trees to the sea.

There are homes shops and restaurants, often dug into the rock, connected by arches and semi-arches which act as buttresses and support.

The vibrant streets of Ostuni are bustling with tourists from around Italy and abroad during the summer months, but in particular during the festival of St Oronzo at the end of August.

For me the best time to see the town is at night. A walk up the old town towards the Cattedrale, there will usually be some novel activity in the streets particularly in august, then loose yourself in the magic labyrinth which is Ostuni centro storico.

Does anyone know of a good taxi service in Ostuni, Brindisi? If for example i wanted to go from the Railway station in Ostuni to the Town centre what would be the best way to do that? Is there a number i could ring from the train so the taxi would be waiting on my arrival? Please if anyone knows, let me know?

Information on getting to Ostuni:

Getting to Ostuni depends a lot on where you are coming from. I come from Dublin and I have done it several ways. There is a railway in Ostuni and the main Bari - Lecce motorway passes Ostuni about 6km from it.

Ryanair fly from London Stanstead to Brindisi
London Stansted 17:15:00 21:05:00 Arrive Brindisi
Brindisi 21:30:00 23:35:00 Arrive Stansted

There are direct trains from Rome, Bologna, Milan etc, and the railway station in Ostuni is about 1km east of Ostuni town. It would be necessary to get a taxi from the station to the town. The best way to organise a train trip in Italy is to use their web site TrenItalia All connections and times are given, all you need to know is the origin and destination.

Travelling by road is straight forward as there are motorways (Autostrada) that go from all airports to near Ostuni. The turn for Ostuni from the motorway from Bari to Brindisi/Lecce is clearly marked, in fact there are 4 possible exits so even if you missed one the next would do fine. The best exit to take, i.e. the shortest distance (6km) in the exit displayed as (Ostuni/Porto Nova).. For all journey planners there is always Google Maps or the excellent route finder Via Michelin

Ostuni is easily accessable today with Ryanair flying to Brindisi. Brindisi is the closest airport to Ostuni, but there are many more options available depending on where you are flying from. And Ryanair are not the only airline to fly to Bari or Brindisi, check out Puglia Airports for details of other airlines flying there.

Ryanair have now opened up more routes to Bari and Brindisi the list now includes:

Alghero

Bologna

Brussells

Cagliari

Dusseldorf

Frankfurt

Genoa

Karlsruhe-Baden

London-Stansted

Malta

Milan

Paris

Trapini

Turin

Valencia

Venice Treviso

Pisa

Barcelona

Eindhoven

Girona

COME ON MICHAEL WHY NOT DUBLIN!!

Coming from Dublin, Ireland, I have gone to Ostuni many ways trying to get the right combination between travel time and cost..
Probably the fastest is to fly to Naples with Aer Lingus and drive to Ostuni. The Drive to Ostuni takes about 3 hours or less if you go a little bit faster than you should.. Car hire from Hertz usually works out well, but flights from Aer Lingus are not as competitive as the RyanAir ones.

Ive gone Ryanair to Ciampino Rome, which takes about 5hours but you can get cheaper flights..

Tolls cost about €20 and petrol €40 from Rome and about 2/3 of both from Naples.

Saturday Morning in Ostuni is a buzz down at the open air market. Hundreds of stalls open for business about 8am and close up about 1pm. There is always an abundance of locally produced fruit and vegtables, clothes, handbags, shoes, furniture, soft furnishings, ceramics and all manner of unusual things.

The market is held at the large open space at the edge of the town, south west of the centre.
If you are looking at it from Google maps go left from the football stadium along via Dottore Nino Sansone and you see what looks like some circular roads, not unlike a small race track, where there it is, Ostuni Market, open saturday mornings.

For those of us doing a bit of self catering, buying the fruit and vegtables that are in season from around the Ostuni area is the best way to taste fresh food the way it should be. There is an indescribable difference in terms of taste between sinking your teeth into a fresh locally produced peach, and what I’ve been used to at home. Not just that, but the prices are unbelievably inexpensive. I was buying a kilo of melanzane (Aubergines) and zucchini (courgettes) it was a euro.. (pronounced Air-row), and the kilo of oranges 67c etc, i had enough fruit and veg for the week, for € 10… and there were 5 of us.

There is a smaller market on a wednesday, it is mainly fruit and veg, at the back via Nino Sansone, there are some clothes and household nick-nacky stuff and it is not too busy. Another Market exists on a Friday morning near that modern church and the all weather soccer pitch, not the stadium, along by via Verona. It has less fruit and veg than the Wednesday one and more of what you’d find at the usual saturday market, however a fraction of the size.

i’m home after 7 weeks in my trullo in Ostuni.. In Dublin it is cold and grey, and i’m missing the sun the sea the food the town my trullo and to make matters worse, i have to work on Monday.

In Ostuni I found the most fantastic local wine sold by the litre, at about 1.10 euro per litre. It came about that I got talking to 2 local chaps in a field next to me. One of them asked me if I knew his shop. Lu Capuson i think it is called. I followed him in his car to Ostuni town, because he was opening up after lunch. I think it was about 5pm. He had a small shop with 6 hugh containers of wine. Most of them were red and varying percentages of Negro Amaro, for the most part, and Malvasia Nera, grapes. I started by tasting a few and I was given some snacks to taste with them. There some nice rose and white wines but my favourite was the red about 70 / 30, Negro Amaro/Malvasia Nera. At a whopping €3.30 for 3 litres that time, I was back for 10 very soon. Which of course cost €11, which is the amount for one bottle of identical Salice Salentino in Dublin.

The soil around Ostuni is incredible. Rich in iron the red earth grows all manner of things both wild and cultivated. I asked the children to go around the land and find as many things to eat as possible and this was what they brought back.

Figs
Pears
Apple-grenades
Figi di India ( Prickly Pears )
Almonds
Plums
Nespola
Olives

Wild:
Grapes
Asparagus
Rocket
Rosemary
Parsley
Fennel bulbs

This year there has been a fair bit of rain in the winter so I wonder what effect it will have on the land and that which grows on it. I heard reports that the grass was 50cm high at Easter, so who knows?

One thing I never expected was the frequency the other guests got together for evenings. Even more surprising at first was how welcome they made us feel to join them. Everyone decided on what to bring to make a big party almost every second night. Food, wine and song went on from 8 until 1am, which was good because we were always fresh for the next day. In general we always had something easy to bring because locals and Italian holiday makers there seemed to be able to source the wine or ingredients a lot better and cheaper than we could.
The quality of cooking among the group was always amazing. There was a chap, a policeman from Ravenna in the north that used to be a pizza maker in Naples, not only was it fun to watch him spin the pizza dough around, which he assured me is not necessary, “this is for the tourists” he would say, but the taste was trulli amazing. After the meal there would be a sing song that would include traditional music and everyone joined in.

training session

Preparation

End Product

Later

What is a Trullo? It’s a Building. It is the traditional house of the Puglia region of Italy. It is similar to a cottage but with a cylindrical body and a cone shaped stone roof. All made from local abundant stone, the walls can be a few meters thick. In this way they keep the heat out in the summer and the heat in, in the winter, in the same way a cave does.
Each room usually has its own cone, and small side cones or half cones may cover a bedroom, that generally has enough room to accommodate one bed. The bedrooms, or alcoves with beds, are often covered by a curtain which can provide a very romantic appearance.

There are many theories on why they were built like this, one is that they were built in a drystone way, so they could be demolished if the property tax collector was in the region, and then rebuilt when he leaves. Fantastic idea, but highly impractical. Most peasants in the 15th 16th 17th 18th and early 19th centuries in this region, particularly the Itria Valley of Puglia, lived in a trullo. In one way building in stone was practical because it was in such abundance, but there is evidence of trulli through the centuries from Israel to the Skellig Island of county Kerry in Ireland. Maybe migrating people carried the skill of building in this way with them, or the absence of other materials was the mother of the invention.

There are different styles of trullo, or in other words they can appear different depending on their finish. Here are some examples:

Dry Stone Trullo

Plastered Trullo

Plastered Trullo Stone Roof with Pinnacle

Lamia, trullo with a dome roof

There is a thriving business in restoring trulli for holiday homes or even to live in. Many locals that live in the town of Ostuni for example, have a trullo just outside in the country, where they spend their summers and autumns tending the land, picking the fruit, the nuts, olives etc. Italians and overseas buyers use them as holiday homes, and in some cases building swimming pools, to add some luxury to the property. There are some foreigners that live in a trullo all year round, reaping the benefits of a tranquil life, short winter and a long summer.
A renovated Trullo, or trulli (plural) can have all the modern facilities like kitchen, bathroom, electricity and central heating. Renting a trullo for a holiday is a unique experience and with fantastic weather from May to October, they can be inexpensive out of high season.

This spacious house close to Ostuni town (1.5km), is ideal for a large group or family, sleeps 6. There are 3 bedrooms each with an en-suite toilet and wash-hand-basin. The large kitchen is fully equipped for self catering and there is a main bathroom. This house is has a beautiful view of the sea, and has a large outdoor barbeque and pizza oven.

Prices per week are as follows: August €700 July €500 September €500 October €500 June €400 May €400 April €400

conrad.greene@gmail.com Large Country House

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