Our story
We are both in our early 50's and have been together for 24 years. Hannah is a mosaic artist, (some of whose work is on show in the trullo), and Dominic is an animator, working in London. Both of us are self-employed and we're both in love with Italian food, wine and life.
We discovered Puglia in the middle of a holiday in Positano in 2004. Finding the Amalfi coast very beautiful, but super expensive, and since we were able to change our booking easily, we looked around to see where else we could go. We saw a picture of a trullo in a guide book and thought, let's go there!
We had a fantastic road trip accross southern Italy and arrived in Alberobello just after a thunderstorm. The earth was at it's most burnt sienna, the olive trees the most olivey and the sky was a mixture of pure blue and deep, slate grey. We instantly loved it. Our first stay was in Alberobello and our first meal at La Cantina.
For us, the meal at La Cantina was a life-changing experience. The menu-less restaurant served us the most delicately beautiful, exquisite food, the most delicious wine. It is still one of our favourite places to eat.
We stayed at Hotel Lanzillotta, where we got our first chance to stay in a trullo. They were really welcoming and it was a brilliant base to explore the local area from, which was a joy.
We travelled around a lot that holiday and the next town we visited was Martina Franca.
When we entered the town it was during one of their many festivals; so the town was decorated with fabulous lights, the bandstand was up and the benches were full of old men watching and chatting. We met some lovely ladies who advised us and questioned us in equal measure.
In June 2005 we started looking for a house to buy and although we looked in many towns, including Lecce, we always had a strong desire to buy near Martina Franca, as we loved it so much. Fortunately for us, we met an amazing man called Antonio. He was working as an estate agent in Martina and was a joy from the minute we met him. Super helpful, unfailingly generous and now a lovely friend, he found houses for us and helped both in that purchase and the subsequent building. We couldn't have completed our journey without him and although we see him less now as he's moved back to Bari, (he owns and runs a Jazz and Blues recording studio, A.Ma records there), we couldn't write about Puglia and our journey without him.
The first view we had of what would become our fantastic Trullo.
We bought our fabulous trullo in the December of 2005. At that time it was a shell with a hastily and badly built concrete lean-to attached. It had basic electricity but no plumbing or water. Our original plan was to buy somewhere finished and ready to rent, but we fell in love with this trullo right from the start. Something about its proportions and the light inside, plus its proximity to our favourite Puglian town, Martina Franca, hooked us.
Trullo with leanto
We began, naively, to initiate building and apply for planning and we thought we'd be finished by that summer!! We bought the kitchen and the cooker and the sofa and beds and then found that planning was going to take over a year. In 2008, with a second builder, after paying fines for building too early, and who had considerably better Italian language skills, we finally finished the lamia (the villa part of the building). It has taken a further 8 years to raise the money, and more problematically, get the right permissions, to build the swimming pool.
Inside the Trullo we bought in 2005....
......and what eventually became the kitchen
Early days in the Lamia
Our first step was building the Lamia; the villa part of our Trullo. The roof is placed on curved concrete supports which are made by creating wood shuttering within which to form the concrete. That curved roof is very typical of the area and helps the lamia blend, we hope, with the Trullo.
Pouring the concrete in the pool
Dom and Hannah in Matera, 2016
Hannah and her favourite tree. We've planted many many trees, but this is special for Hannah, as it was €1 and only half a metre high 10 years ago.
In the eleven years since we bought our trullo we've planted 35 trees, umpteen shrubs, painted and repainted, built a shed and pergola and generally added as much love to our home as we could. We began building our swimming pool in September 2016, completing it in November. We've learnt an awful lot, some of it linguistically, and we've enjoyed pretty much every minute we've been here. Each time we stay we love the food, the wine, the people, even more so. We would dearly love to live here for longer.......one day........
We tend to keep on top of the decorating each spring.
Our favourite beach spot. Down towards Lecce on the Adriatic coast.
So, here's then and now; 2005-2016
Then there's the food....!! These are some of the wonderful meals we've had in Puglia. In restaurants, at home and with friends. (Also a couple of food shops to whet the appetite.)
