Italy: Head
For The Heel
Forget Tuscany. The new 'in'
region is Puglia. Jeremy Atiyah
finds out if it's hip or hype
Published: 18 July 2004
Puglia? The Next Big Thing?
The new Chiantishire? That's what I keep hearing. The heel of
Italy,
I learn, has suddenly become fashionable. Tourists are discovering that its
olive oil, wine, landscape, art and culture exist in proportions previously
thought to exist only in
Tuscany.
But unlike
Tuscany, with its
British veneer,
Puglia is being
seen as more authentic. Or so people want to believe. Well, all right,
Puglia
didn't give us the Renaissance. It didn't change the world. It doesn't have
Florence
or
Siena. It doesn't have Dante,
Michelangelo, Raphael, the Medici family or the Borgias. But it does have funny
little rustic cottages with conical roofs called trulli. And since the
beginning of 2004, it also has three new direct air connections to the
UK,
where previously there were none.
And I confess that this is bothering me. Let me declare my interests: I love
Puglia, and its gentle hills, its
Baroque towns, and its funny rustic cottages. I don't want to share it with the
hordes of Brtis from
Tuscany. I
pride myself on having found
Puglia
before Ryanair did. I already feel nostalgic for the days when you had to fly to
Rome, and catch the overnight train
to
Lecce, arriving shortly after
dawn in a strange southern land, dotted with olive trees and little white
villages that looked as if they might be in
Greece.
Back then, you never met any British tourists during your holiday. The
trulli were allowed to crumble in peace. The azure sea was the preserve of
effortlessly brown and beautiful locals. The only industry of the scuffed
fishing ports was fishing. The only sounds from the interior were those of
peasants fermenting their wine and pressing their olives and killing their
pigs.
But now what? I'm back, having just arrived on the new Ryanair flight to
Bari
(very convenient it was, too). What I want to know is: how long will it take
for
Puglia's lovely old towns to
fill to the brim with tourists? When will the overflow from San Gimignano and
Siena
arrive? How long will it take before those picturesque hillsides with their
ruinous trulli resound to the sounds of stonemasons laughing their way to the
bank? How long until every bewildered Pugliese peasant has his very own English
neighbour?
The omens are not promising.
Puglia's
southern climate invites year-round tourism, and as a long thin peninsula, it
offers an inordinately large amount of coastline, just waiting to be developed.
I've already heard rumours that several golf courses and marinas are planned.
Anyway, I'll be staying in the Valle d'Itria, a region famous for its gentle
hills, fertile land, historic towns and trulli. This is by no means the only
attractive part of
Puglia: the
heel of
Italy
stretches for another hundred miles to the south of here, while to the north
lies the wild and beautiful Gargano peninsula. But I am sticking to the rural
delights of Trulloland. And the first thing I do on arrival is call the owners
of Long Travel, one of the very few UK tour operators who have specialised in
Puglia since long before the advent of Ryanair. Ray and Annie Long promptly
take me on a tour of the trulli that they are letting out to tourists. We are
soon on tiny lanes, amid meadows and orchards blooming with poppies and other
wild flowers.
In case anyone still doesn't know, a trullo is a stone cottage topped by one
or (usually) several conical stone roofs. Some are tiny cottages; others verge
on the palatial. Driving around the Valle d'Itria, trulli roofs can be seen
peeping up on all sides. If you drive off the main roads and on to the country
lanes, trulli are sometimes all you'll see. Many comprise little more than
quaint piles of rubble amid the almond, walnut and olive trees. The Longs' own
trulli are gorgeous little cottages in perfect rustic locations of the sort
that any self-respecting Englishman would die for. I, too, covet their natural
stone floors, their terraces, their courtyards and their trees. It is hard to
imagine that Ryanair customers will not soon be clamouring for them.
But strangely enough the Longs themselves seem ambivalent about the growing
tide of tourists. In the short term, they concede that their business may
profit. But in the long term? "We aren't sure," they murmur,
"whether the local authorities can be trusted not to go mad." And
conversation turns to golf courses, giant hotels, marinas ...
As for foreigners coming in and buying up all the trulli - it's already
happening. The masons who are qualified to restore those conical roofs are
indeed prospering, as are some who are not. Naturally, I am bitter about this,
as should any Englishman be who has always wanted to buy a palace in
Puglia
for next to nothing, and live there safe in the knowledge that his nearest
English neighbour is in
Tuscany.
Swallowing my envy, I accompany the Longs to meet their own neighbour, whom
I can certify to be a peasant of the most authentic variety. He shows us his
pig, his cow, his sheep, his rabbits. We see the place where his wife prepares
her homemade pasta and bakes her own homemade bread. We sample his cheeses and
sausages over a glass of rough wine, and I worry that on present trends, these
humble Pugliese pleasures may be extinct within a few years.
In the evening I head back to my lodgings in Martina Franca, one of several
exquisite towns in the valley. Through a local agency, I've rented a flat in
the old town: I've got my very own vaulted ceilings, stone floors, antique
furniture and a roof terrace. All around me is a warren of whitewashed lanes,
staircases, arches and terraces and tunnels. It echoes to the sounds not of
traffic, but of eating and cooking. Turn any corner and you'll walk face-first
into a pair of pants, where someone's laundry line has sagged.
There are more foreign tourists wondering round Martina Franca than in the
past, but right now I can report that the locals outnumber them by about a
thousand to one. My visit coincides with Easter and the streets are thronged
with immaculately dressed families heading for church. By
11pm they will have transferred, small kids and all, to
the restaurants.
Over dinner, I notice with approval that increased tourism has not yet
inflated the price of wine: a litre of house red in my restaurant of choice costs
€2.50 (£1.70). And when I order the dirt-cheap "starter of the house"
I am brought a vast tray of delicacies, including pickled mushrooms, succulent
mozzarella, crunchy fennel, spicy meatballs, tender octopus, fizzy cheese,
stuffed zucchini and cured meats (and afterwards the waiter looks troubled when
I decline the offer of a main dish).
By the time that's finished it's nearly
midnight,
and in the streets an Easter procession has begun, overlooked by the ancient
Baroque façades of the central piazza. Dumpy ladies in black carrying Roman
candles come followed by men in strange capes and headdresses, and emergency
workers with "Misericordia" written on their jackets. At the sight of
the effigies of Jesus and Mary, the silent crowd breaks spontaneously into a
reverent prayer. In the background a band of trumpeters and trombonists is
playing an emotional and, indeed, epic dirge that seems to owe as much to
Hollywood
as to the Catholic church. Given the almost complete absence of foreigners, I
attribute this to TV, rather than to the corrupting influence of tourism.
As I already know, historic and traditional towns such as Martina Franca are
plentiful in this region of
Puglia.
Nearby is Ostuni, piled on a hill overlooking the sea. Cisternino and
Locorotondo are equally charming. Only Alberobello, self-appointed capital of
Trulloland, strikes me as avoidable. It boasts entire streets lined with
trulli. It has a trullo church. It has something called the Supreme Trullo,
which claims to be the grandest trullo in existence, and the mother of all
trulli. My hope is that Alberobello will suck in the new surfeit of tourists
and detain them for as long as possible, perhaps in a dungeon of the Supreme
Trullo.
For my last couple of days I decide to get out into the countryside, to
sample another kind of accommodation unique to
Puglia.
A masseria is the local version of a country house, or chateau. Traditionally,
these grand old buildings are flat-roofed, block-shaped structures, with floors
and ceilings of native Leccese stone. If you have half a million quid to spend
on your Pugliese holiday home, you buy one of these instead of a trullo. Some
of them, in the meantime, have been restored and converted into country hotels.
I try a couple. One is the Masseria San Domenico, which offers probably the
most luxurious accommodation in the whole of
Puglia,
with its private beach, giant swimming pool and golf course. The masseria
itself is in beautiful white stone, with little Baroque flourishes; its rooms
give out on to ancient olive groves full of flowers. The atmosphere is
expensive and classy, though I am somewhat intimidated by the presence of
security guards attending the VIP guests. The other masseria I get to try is
the Melograno, which has the faint air of an Andalusian (or Mexican) hacienda
about it. Its courtyards are dotted with some of the most gnarled and ancient
olive trees I have ever seen in my life. With its pool and its shady gardens,
this will place will succeed, I suspect, in absorbing a few Ryanair customers.
But the general problem of staying in a masseria-hotel becomes apparent at
dinner time. The attached restaurant will no doubt be classy. Except the
problem is this: who wants to eat in a classy restaurant in
Puglia?
Who wants to sit at a table next to a besuited Milanese banker and his wife, in
a region where the humblest, cheapest trattoria is unfailingly excellent?
From the Melograno, after dark, I escape by car a few miles down the road to
the seaport of Monopoli, one of several similar ports along this coast. At
ten o'clock at night its piazzas are packed
with perambulating townsfolk. Waves are beating on its massive stone walls.
Fishing boats are pulled up in its ancient harbour. In tiny restaurants people
are ordering fishy delicacies, while old women are mourning for their sons lost
at sea in winter storms of long ago, and giant old churches of weather-beaten
stone are looming over the hearts and minds of all of us.
It is atmospheric rather than beautiful, but that's all right by me. None
but the most dedicated aficionados of
Puglia,
I suspect, will ever find time for towns such as this one.
GIVE ME THE FACTS
How to get there
Return flights to
Bari with
Ryanair (0871-246 0000;
www.ryanair.com)
cost from £98 return in August.
A week's car hire through National Car Rental (0870 400 4560;
www.nationalcar.com) costs
around £202.
Where to stay
Long Travel (01694 722193;
www.long-travel.co.uk) specialises in tailor-made holidays in
Puglia,
with
trulli of different sizes available for rent. Prices start at
around £635 per
trullo per week in August, including car hire.
Long Travel also organises hotel accommodation. Bed and breakfast at the
five-star Il Melograno, near Monopoli, costs from £125 per person per night
through Long Travel.
I Paesi della Luce (00 39 080 430 1588;
www.ipaesidellaluce.it)
offers quaint old apartments inside the old town of
Martina
Franca from about £35 per night. Double rooms at the
Masseria San Domenico, near Savelletri, cost from £160 per night booked through
Great Hotels of the World (0800-032 4254;
www.ghotw.com).
Further information
Italian State Tourist Board (020-7408 1254;
www.enit.it).
