CITY OF ALBEROBELLO:

Mary Ann: This is a magical city, filled with these wonderfully-shaped cone trulli and every day when I go out, I almost imagine that gnomes or munchkins will come popping out from one of the doorways. The structures are actually quite short, and so they give me the feeling of being a giant in a strange land. They sit along very narrow streets that wind around every which way, but that doesn’t stop cars from zooming around corners at amazing speed. We sit on a hill filled with many (perhaps a couple hundred) trulli which are either connected to each other or very nearly so. Across from us we can see another hill covered with just as many, with the main street of the city separating the two ancient sections of town. On that street, and in the connecting piazza is where the Thursday morning market is held.

Don: One of the most remarkable features of this town is the sense of community that we have seen. Every weeknight at about 7:00 pm people come out to walk the main streets and the piazza. It seems it must be a part of the family routine. Couples walk together, families stroll with babies in carriages, and there are almost always a number of groupings of men who gather with 5 or 6 others to stroll or stand on the sidewalk discussing some-thing often with the typical animation and enthusiasm of Italians in general. What do they talk about? Politics? Sports? Wives? Maybe the latest tangle with the family? I certainly can’t tell, but they always have time to notice the couple from America who walk by hand in hand. There aren’t a lot of smiles to spare here, but I don’t get the sense that they are unfriendly. It just doesn’t seem to be the Italian way to be liberal with a smile at least in this rather small, rural village. If the weekdays belong to the adults, the weekends belong to the teens. The main street is blocked off for automobile traffic so they can have their space. It seems to me that they are here to learn to become as good as their parents at the art of being community. They stroll, they chat, they congregate, they laugh, and they eat pizza. Guys seem to collect in small groups while girls walk in pairs or groups, often arm in arm. Rarely have I seen a people whose commitment to community is seemingly this strong.