Arbor belli...tree of war

Arbor belli...tree of war

After a closer look at the origins of the name of Alberobello, the small town in Puglia, I discovered that the name is derived from arbor belli...tree of war. Seems as if the area, an oak tree forest, was contested between two feudal kingdoms in the 11th century,  and the contested are became known as arbor belli. Alberobello means beautiful tree in Italian, so I’ll go with that.

Alberobello is a UNESCO World Heritage site because of its uniquely shaped and constructed houses, the trulli (trullo in the singular). The count who owned the land allowed people to build only temporary houses; building permanent  houses would have required the count to pay taxes to the Spanish rulers in the Kingdom of Naples. The local folks developed a round design for the houses that would be be stable without using mortar. 

Many of the trulli in Alberobello are centuries old, but the walls are strengthened with mortar, and the exterior and interior walls and ceilings are finished with plaster. The roofs still appear to be dry layed without mortar. Our trullo has modern plumbing, electricity, and AC (thankfully since it's been around 90 degrees F). Here’s a photo of our trullo, Trulli delle Sorelle #14.

There are trulli in most parts of the old city, with one area, the Rione AIA Piccola that has the most authentic trulli. That are is just around the corner from our trullo. When we arrived yesterday afternoon, the streets were full of tourists, and it was difficult to get photos of the trulli without people. So I got up at 5:30 this morning to photograph, and the streets were completely empty except for the guys sweeping the narrow streets. Here are a few of the photos from today in Alberobello.

R

We had a “tasting antipasto lunch” today, which consisted of several salamis, cheeses, bruschetta, etc., and we thought we would have about five or six types of antipasti. But the waiter kept bringing plate after plate of antipasti, and by the end, there were 20 different samplings of antipasti. Thankfully, our dinner reservations are for 9:00 pm tonight (and that’s considered early in Puglia). Here’s the list of antipasti that we endured this afternoon: 

Bruschetta 

Buratta cheese

Taralli 

Focaccia

Pane

Olives

Cima di rape

Peperoncino e tonno

Pomodoro secco 

Carciofi

Zucchini 

Melanzane 

Prosciutto 

Capocollo 

Salami

Pecorino cheese

Stracchino cheese

Figs

Caciocavallo cheese

Mortadella

Ciao,

David