Villas in Puglia near Locorotondo >>
Locorotondo is one of Puglia's prettiest towns with a proudly conserved, easily-walkable centre and a calm, laid-back atmosphere.
Its luminous white-washed walls and panoramic position recall Ostuni, the Citta' Bianca, but its location, in the middle of the Valle d'Itria, invites more comparisons with its UNESCO World Heritage Site neighbour, Alberobello.
This latter is famous for its delightful trulli-speckled centre and yet, despite being just 8km down the road, Locorotondo chose to follow a completely different building route! No cone-topped cylinders here, but plenty of cummerse, narrow rectangular town houses with pointed gable roofs, strangely evocative of north European, Baltic architecture.
These simple, angular buildings that predominate the centre belie the town's true shape, which, as its name implies, is "rotund", both horizontally (thanks to its circular street plan) and vertically (it hugs the contours of the curvaceous hill on which it sits).
The old protective walls are traced by a perimeter road offering wonderful views over the surrounding agricultural land, a quilt of vineyards, olive groves and trulli dissected by dry-stone walls. It is no coincidence that Locorotondo is know as the "balcony of the Valle d'Itria".
From the two original gates one enters a web of streets that wind indolently up to the central piazza.The whiteness of the cummerse is interrupted only by the occasional polychrome flash of a baroque palace or a vibrantly coloured flower box. The early 19th century Church of St. George and the fine Romanesque Church of the Madonna della Greca are worth a look but monuments and churches are not the reason to visit Locorotondo: its charm lies in the collective whole rather than in its consituent parts.
When you've spent an hour or so wandering the streets and are ready for lunch, try some u tridde, Locorotondo's speciality, a freshly made pasta incorporating pecorino cheese and finely-chopped parsley cut into small pieces and cooked in a wholesome turkey broth. Washed down with a glass or two of Locorotondo DOC wine from the Cantina Sociale, you'll soon be ready to continue touring the wonderful Valle d'Itria.
Villas in Puglia near Locorotondo >>