Sundowner: Autumn/Winter 2019

unlocking the artistic and commercial potential of the grottoes
and churches, and bringing a sense of troglodyte pride back to
the twin Sassi of Caveoso and Barisano.
The chiese rupestri, or rock churches, are hauntingly beautiful:
in San Pietro Barisano, we see the sculptor Louise Manzon’s
sublime female forms set against the ancient frescoes in a
powerful show. And climbing to the top of the Sassi’s limestone
mound, we are rewarded by the twin chapels of Santa Maria de
Idris and San Giovanni in Monterrone: their pockmarked façade
conceals a handful of glorious wall paintings, from a serene
Byzantine Virgin to a powerful Christ Pantocrator.
On the Civita hill opposite, Milanese entrepreneur Daniele
Kihlgren has transformed the old grottoes into an 18-room
luxury albergo diffuso, or scattered hotel. Each bedroom at
Sextantio occupies its own rough-hewn cave: lit by candles,
they’re furnished simply, in wood; linens are hand-woven,
and bathrooms are of the highest spec. After an aperitivo in
the courtyard at sundown, we head to dinner at Regia Corte,
Sant’Angelo’s stylish terrace restaurant, where we watch the
shadows lengthen in the Murgia National Park across the gorge.
Back over the border in Puglia, the rough, serpentine road to
Alberobello sets every spring in the car twanging. Gradually, the
quiet of the olive groves gives way to buses squeezing
past, bringing visitors to smile wryly at the town’s uniquely
enigmatic trulli: little houses like limestone mushrooms with
cone-shaped shingle roofs that rise up the hill on neat terraces.
A late afternoon here is best, when the pretty touristic centre
is emptying, and the districts of Monti and Aia Piccola are
busy with artisan lacemakers and embroiderers showing
off their skills.
In the cool of her shady trullo halfway up the slope, La
Signora Celestina is packing up for the day. What’s the story
of her home town? “Ah, that, nobody really knows,” she laughs.
“If you ask me, it was about money. In the 1500s, landowners
ordered the poor farmers to build houses in a way that meant
they could be knocked down quickly if they came to seize our
taxes – no house, no tax bill!”
Nine kilometres to the southeast, but a whole world away
from the hubbub of Alberobello, is Locorotondo, with the
prettiest centro storico in the Valle d’Itria, and out of season, not
a visitor in sight. The clue here is in the name – Locorotondo
means “round place”, and this whitewashed hill town has a
circular street plan that forms a maze of little lanes lined with
ancient buildings, some faded and crumbling, others with grand
22 | AUTUMN/WINTER 2019