Puglia, in the olive month
A masseria among the olive groves, the fairytale trulli of Alberobello, and two children who ran themselves happily ragged.
4 minute read
The short version
- A private masseria in the Itria Valley, all stone, shade and a pool by the door.
- The trulli at Alberobello looked, to a six-year-old, exactly like a village of fairy houses.
- Slow days, the sea twenty minutes away, figs straight off the tree.
There is a particular quiet to a masseria in late September. The heat has loosened its grip, the olive harvest is not quite on, and the whole of the Itria Valley seems to exhale. We had a stone house to ourselves, thick walls, cool floors, a pool a few steps from the door, and for a week the children ran themselves happily ragged while we did very little, beautifully.
The shape of the days
With a six-year-old and a two-year-old, a villa earns its keep. We could nap the little one without tiptoeing around a hotel corridor while the eldest splashed about. There was a kitchen, and a cook two of the days, so supper appeared without anyone having to be clever about it. Mornings were for the pool before the sun got serious; afternoons for the shade and a long lunch under the trees that somehow lasted until it was nearly evening.
The fairy houses
The outing that landed was Alberobello, half an hour away, where the trulli, those little whitewashed houses with conical stone roofs, look for all the world like a village built for fairies. Our eldest was completely taken; the two-year-old mostly enjoyed the gelato. The coast is close too, twenty minutes to low cliffs and clear water, though in truth we did not move much.
The best thing about Puglia, with children, is that you do not have to.
It is the kind of trip that asks nothing of you, which when you have two small ones is the only kind worth taking.
A small tip
Hire a car. The masserie are wonderfully remote, which is the point, but you will want to reach a beach and a town now and then without it being a production.
An illustrative diary of the kind of trip we love to arrange, rather than a specific recommendation. Tell us what you are after and we will find the right version for you.