Apart from a few late night 'back seat spring testers' driving along the track for nookie there was nothing to disturb us all night. There's a beautiful sunrise and it's already 23C before we get up.
We have an easy motorway journey towards Taranto then turn north on quieter roads towards Alberobello. There are lots of olive farms with sandstone walls. Ali has read that these are 'masserias'; farms modelled on classical Roman villas complete with farmhouse, oil mills, cellar, stores and workers' accommodation as self sufficient communities. Now many are run as upmarket agritourism.
We also see the first buildings with Trulli characteristics; circular walled with witches hat rooves then we get into the town of Alberobello and easily find the camperstop Nel Verde.
Alberobello is famous for its Trulli area and it's only a five minute walk to the historic centre. Quiet, narrow streets thread between clusters of these quirky, whitewashed,windowless homes. A trullo was originally built of sandstone with no cement. The conical rooves were secured with a central plug and folklore says that when the tax collectors came the plug would be pulled, the roof collapsed and no tax would be payable. They fell into disrepair but now many of these former peasant homes are lived in by locals and some have been prettied up for tourists as rental or B&B.
Down in the central square pink bunting left from the Giro flaps in the breeze. Restaurants are starting to get busy so we find a shaded table and linger over lunch of antipasti, salads, mains of lamb for Ali and sole for Nick and finished with ice creams, a lovely way to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary [which is actually tomorrow]. A bottle of local Primitivo helps it all down.
We stroll among another area of trulli, it's like being in a fairy tale town of bee hives, totally unlike anything we've ever seen. Apparently there are well over a thousand of them.
The modern part of town is pleasant too and the heat forces us to find shade and cool drinks before buying postcards and a couple souvenirs and wandering the short distance back to the camperstop.