Day 19: Sunday, May 25. We woke early. Breakfast at the B&B was 9-10 a.m. so we started out by walking around a little bit before. For 8 a.m. on a Sunday there appeared to be a lot of walkers, joggers, and fishermen along the walkway.

I saw lots of people fishing, from boats and from the shore, but didn't see many reeling anything in.

Breakfast at the B&B was a real treat. Italian breakfasts are not traditionally very much - often coffee and a pastry. The owner showed up at about 9 with a bag full of stuff. Everything was fresh, and most home made/grown. She had picked the strawberries and cherries from her garden this morning (not the pineapple or kiwi, though). Her husband, a pastry chef, made the assortment of pastries. 

After breakfast we went back to the historic center of town for more relaxing strolls (some shopping) and went to mass at the historic cathedral, dating back to 1295. We just happened to be there for First Communion Sunday. May is traditionally the month for first communions, but traditions vary widely. Our home church does them individually rather than in a group. Dress codes vary. This church did it the old fashioned way, with all the kids dressed in white. Some of the girls were even wearing the traditional "halo" of small flowers like my mom wore almost 90 years ago. After mass the kids and the priest joined hands in the piazza out front. 

We lucked out. This was the day in Italy that most wineries were open for visitors. We decided that we would visit the one located at our destination for the day, only about 30 minutes away. We visited Albea Winery where we sampled four different wines and toured their wine museum. 

The main point of this day was to visit Alberobello, a UNESCO-protected historic site. The main attraction there is the Trulli (singular - Trullo), concrete structures with conical roofs. Most of the structures are not terribly old by Italian standards - only 100 years or so. Sone of them are a couple of hundred years old, although the construction does date back a little before that. But because of their distinctiveness they draw people from all over the world.

We saw tourists from USA, UK, Germany, France, Japan and China. I'm sure there were others, too. The "experience" was actually being able to stay in a trullo. A number of them have been converted into B&Bs. We thought ours had been decorated quite nicely and had all the amenities of home.

Ours happened to be below ground. Not all are. We didn't mind, as the room was cool without even turning on the air conditioner. 

The town itself is a lesson for entrepreneurs. In the mid-20th century it was run down and falling apart. People were leaving the impractical structures behind and opting for modern places. One guy decided to buy up a bunch of them, fix them up, and rent them out as rooms to tourists. As a result, the whole town is one big tourist attraction. Frankly I liked it less than our day in Polignano al Mare. This place had more merchants inviting you into their shops, telling you they had the finest stuff, etc. None of that happened at Polignano al Mare. One woman whose shop we stopped in told us all kinds of bad things about the winery we had visited: they were not local people, but "northerners" who had bought the winery, and they bring wine in from other parts of Italy, making it not authentic (thus making it less quality than the wine she wanted to sell us). 

I'll conclude with a few more photos from the day. I'm glad we went, I'm glad we can say we stayed in a trullo, but I never feel the need to return. 

Kim's intent in taking this photo was to show the roofs, but I hope you can see the throng of tourists on this "main" street with all sorts of shops.