Bari is the capital of the Italian region of Puglia. Today's excursion was a journey by coach out to the village of Alberobello which is a UNESCO world heritage site.
Only in this small area can you find these small conical roofed houses called trulli houses.
Each trullo (singular) is only a single room. So if you want a residence big enough for a family you have to build a group of interlinked trulli.
They are built out of limestone using a kind of dry stone walling technique - no mortar or cement. The reason for this is that the locals wanted to avoid paying the extortionate property taxes charged by the king. So if they knew the king was coming they could deconstruct the trullo overnight, leaving just a pile of stone, then reconstruct it again after the king had moved on.
Many of them have interesting symbols whitewashed on their roofs, which usually seem to have some religious meaning. We had some free time to walk around and do some souvenir shopping and then we stopped in the main square and had another radler.
After that it was off to a local masseria to sample some local delicacies. We had bruschetta, focaccia, 3 different kinds of cheese and 3 different kinds of wine. The masseria also had a very pretty garden with a cactus in bloom. I've never seen flowers this big on a cactus before.
On the way back to the ship we did the scenic drive through the city of Monopoli, but I didn't see anyone playing board games.
If anything we were even more exhausted than after yesterday's excursion, so we ate early and went straight to bed. To add insult to injury we are going to have less sleep tonight as the clocks are going forward an hour ready for our arrival in Greece.
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