You’ll probably have your first sight of it while driving along Puglia’s coastal motorway – a glorified dual carriageway quaintly lined down its central reservation with nodding oleanders. Your eye will be drawn inland by the high, level-topped Murge plateau rising starkly from the pancake-flat littoral. And there on a little pinnacle, you’ll spy a tumbling pile of white and cream brightly lit by the sun. You won’t know what it is at first. Some sort of quarry? A huge marble monument? When you realize it’s a settlement, it quickly takes on a fairytale aura – a mythical white city seen from afar, possibly a mirage, surely unreachable.
It grows ever larger and whiter on the landscape – and no less enchanted-looking – as you leave the tiny motorway and approach it along country roads flanked by hundreds of stout olive trees. When you reach the outskirts of town, even the first buildings you pass are pale and exotic-looking. There’s a modest, stone-built factory topped with oriental crenellations, and a couple of little trulli poking their mad conical roofs into the air. The otherworldliness is immediate. As you climb further into town, you glimpse through white townhouses a large, Indian-looking folly perched on the edge of olive groves. There’s a stern Baroque frontage embedded in the walls of a Cycladic-island-looking pile of buildings, and a majolica-tiled dome sprouting jauntily from the top of it all. What crazy kind of place is this, you ask yourself.
One of the most impressive small towns in all of southern Italy, Ostuni was ‘discovered’ by British visitors in the early noughties – around the same time that budget flights began serving Puglia. The town has become an ever-firmer fixture on Puglia’s burgeoning tourist trail, and it’s easy to see why. Not only is Ostuni an impressive spectacle, it’s also perfectly sited to lure visitors its way. Bríndisi airport is only a dozen miles off; Puglia’s highest concentration of wacky trulli sit in the nearby Itria Valley; and some lovely little beaches are only ten minutes out of town. Ostuni makes itself even more irresistible with a particularly lively calendar of public events, and a prolonged evening passeggiata. There’s always something going on here, and the bars and cafés hum with life.
Ostuni divides into two main districts: the old and older parts of town. The merely old part sprang up in the 18th and 19th centuries, while the older bit goes way, way back – at least two thousand years. Stone-Age people were living in the Ostuni area about 50,000 years ago (and lovers of pre-history should go and peer at ‘Delia’ on display in Ostuni’s Church of the Monacelle. She’s the 25,000-year-old skeleton of a pregnant woman found reverentially buried in a local grotto). But the definitive founders and christeners of Ostuni were the Italy-colonizing ancient Greeks, who settled on the town’s highest hill in the 1st century B.C., and to whom Ostuni was ‘astu-neon’ – simply, ‘new city’. Later generations of Italians re-built and re-modelled Ostuni’s hilltop clutch of buildings over many centuries, but the original Greek-village building-style has always held sway.
You’ll find the Greek flavour intense when you wander Ostuni’s white-washed, labyrinthine centro storico, but there’s an added element of the fantastical, too. The smooth-plastered homes sprout like an organic mass over their little hilltop, ranging up slopes and down curve-edged staircases, wiggling round ever-intriguing corners. The moulded walls climb to private terraces and roof gardens, form unnameable nooks and recesses, while the narrow alleys duck beneath random arches and sometimes stoop to form short tunnels. Every wall is white and blindingly bright in the sunshine; almost every door, shutter and window-frame is Cycladic-island blue or turquoise.
The strangeness of the place is only amplified by its silence, and emptiness – at most times of day. Washing hangs profusely, so there are clearly people living here, but where are they? Do unseen eyes regard you as you stop to take another photograph? The only thing you hear occasionally is the cool breeze whisking round the alleys and under the cavernous archways. Being on a hilltop by the sea, Ostuni is almost always fresh and breezy despite its dense network of closely-huddled buildings.
But the oddest thing in Ostuni’s higgledy-piggledy old town are the incongruous Baroque flourishes. Elaborately-carved ornamental doorways in weathered yellow stone are inexplicably embedded in the flat white plastered walls. They stick out like sore thumbs on every lane and alleyway. It’s as if each house was once a florid palace that’s been sanded down and painted over except for its doorway. Or as if some historic loony once tried to ‘civilize’ the rustic Greek style by adding bits of grand ornament. Other Baroque effusions crop up unexpectedly elsewhere in Ostuni – the curlicued and bishop-topped obelisk overlooking Piazza della Libertà, for example, and a couple of imposing church frontages squeezed in amongst humbler buildings. But the disembodied doorways and windowframes remain strangest of all.
If you wander Ostuni’s old town for long enough, you’re sure to emerge repeatedly onto the stunning vista it offers to the northeast. On the flat land far below, a wide, unbroken expanse of olive trees stretches to the sea. These aren’t the tame and delicate olive trees you’ve come to expect from, say, central Italy. Puglian olive trees are different. They’re monstrous, shaggy things with fat, twisting trunks that look like they’ve each been caught in a private tornado. They live for centuries, and provide exceptionally high-quality olive oil. To add to the unusualness of the scene, all the trees at the foot of Ostuni have been cropped into a cuboid shape. So the view is of thousands of leafy cubes, tumbling towards the blue Adriatic.
Having marvelled at the centro storico and its vista, you’ll probably want to roam Ostuni’s newer streets too. You’ll find them much straighter than the wriggling lanes of the old town, but surprisingly similar in feel and architecture. Having established a local style, Ostuni seems to have been reluctant to let it go. The whitewashed, vaguely Cycladic-cubic homes of the newer streets huddle close together and jumble round each other. Cars put in an appearance, and there are a few more people on the pavement, but other than this there is little difference from the ancient part of town.
Whatever route you pursue, you always seem to end up back in Piazza della Libertà. This wide, triangular space is surely the heart of Ostuni, poised just between its oldest and newer parts. If evening is coming down after your day’s wanderings, you’re sure to sense the air of excitement radiating out from the piazza, as the whole town gears up for several hours of passeggiata. You can take your pick from Ostuni’s remarkably good restaurants, then join the well-dressed throng on the pavements. Hours later, if you leave Ostuni the way you came, you’ll see that this ‘white city’ is now a blaze of orange light set on high in the surrounding darkness. As the miles pass, it becomes a smaller and smaller beacon in the distance behind you. It looks as enchanted a place as it did in the daylight, if not even more so.
six recommended hotels in Ostuni
LA TERRA HOTEL
Via G. Petrarolo, 20
+39 0831 336651/2
www.laterrahotel.it
Tucked down a little alley on a lower slope of the centro storico, this refurbished 18th-century palazzo offers serene and elegant rooms with arching white walls and ceilings set against simple yellow linen and dark wood furniture. The small on-site restaurant serves traditional Puglian fare, and the bar is a very cosy little bolthole. A fine hotel with a four star rating.
Double room €65 - €115
SOLE BLU B&B
Corso Vittorio Emanuele II
+39 0831 303856
www.webalice.it/solebluostuni/
Positioned in the lively heart of Ostuni, just a few metres from the central Piazza della Libertà, this tiny, family-run B&B has just two cute, appealingly cave-like guestrooms. The owners speak English, and keep a delightful cat. They also have a self-catering property nearby, Casa Colomba – a neat townhouse with a panoramic terrace, simply furnished and able to sleep up to five people.
Double room €60 - €80
MASSERIA TOLLA
Contrada Tolla, S.P. per Martina Franca
+39 339 333 2646 / +39 328 532 4101
www.masseriatolla.it
One kilometre west of Ostuni, surrounded by olive trees and evergreen shrubs, this stately 200-year-old masseria forms an elegant and interesting building suggestive of a small castle. Inside, the attractive, airy rooms sport vaulted ceilings and half-moon windows, and have been fitted out with period furniture.
Double room €60 - €90
HOTEL LA DARSENA
Loc. Costa Merlata, Marina di Ostuni
+39 0831 304000
www.hotelladarsena.com
Set beside a stretch of clean, pale sand a couple of miles from Ostuni’s old town, this modern three-star hotel is perfect for those who want to combine a beach holiday with a bit of historical sightseeing. You can swim all day, then join Ostuni’s night-time passeggiata. The hotel restaurant is very good, and accommodation is on a half- or full-board basis.
Double room €45 - €115
LA SOMMITÀ
Via Scipione Petrarolo, 7
+39 0831 305925
www.lasommita.it
In a converted palace tucked behind Ostuni’s cathedral, this luxurious boutique hotel offers a very peaceful retreat. The design is exquisite – cool, clean lines; lots of off-white fabric and pale wood; and magnificent vaulted ceilings throughout. There’s a spa, a subterranean wine bar, and an excellent restaurant with dining indoors or outside in a walled Spanish garden. Ask for a room with a terrace and a sea view.
Double room €250 - €330
TAVERNA DELLA GELOSIA
Vicolo Tommaso Andriola, 26
(off Via G. Tanzarella Vitale)
+39 0831 334736
www.tavernadellagelosia.it
Meal for two about €40
Spread up and down a series of pretty terraces thronged with dappled light from the leafy branches overhead, this wonderful restaurant specializes in forgotten local specialities and centuries-old recipes. The menu is full of interesting and unusual things. For a primo,try barley with nettle and herbs, medieval-style black pasta, or pasta with pink peppercorns. Secondo choices include some relatively uncommon meats.
OSTERIA DEL TEMPO PERSO
Via G. Tanzarella Vitale, 47
+39 0831 303320 / +39 0831 304819
www.osteriadeltempoperso.com
Meal for two about €70
Recommended by the Slow Food Society for the quality of its cuisine, this intimate little restaurant occupies an attractive, cavernous chamber in Ostuni’s old town. The menu consists of traditional dishes plus more creative things done with high-quality local ingredients. There’s an especially good selection of flavoured cheeses and desserts, so be sure to leave room for afters!
CAFFE RICCARDO
Via G. Tanzarella Vitale, 61
+39 0831 306046
Snacks and drinks for two about €20
Probably the most stylish café in Ostuni, this chic cocktail-lounge-cum-nightclub spills its plush crimson chairs out onto a tiny centro storico terrace. Inside, the cave-like 13th-century interior has been slicked up with ultra-modern décor. The various rooms are small and intimate, and the drinks and snacks are very high-quality – if a little pricy.
OSTERIA PIAZZETTE CATTEDRALE
Via Arcidiacono Trinchera, 7
+39 0861 335026
www.piazzettecattedrale.it
Closed Tuesdays
Meal for two about €50
Just in front of Ostuni’s lovely 13th-century cathedral, in a building that was once a castle and later a monastery, this charming osteria offers high-quality Puglian fare with elements from elsewhere. The elegant, whitewashed interior has vaulted ceilings and tasteful curios placed in wall niches. There’s a fantastic wine selection and many surrounding shelves of gleaming bottles.
IL GIARDINO DELLE ROSE
Via Francesco Tanzarella Vitale, 26-28
+39 0831 338530
Meal for two about €28
This lively and well-attended pizzeria sits just outside the walls of Ostuni’s centro storico. It offers the chance to see one of southern Italy’s great culinary spectacles – namely, the cooking of pizza in a traditional wood-fired oven. Watch the chefs nimbly rotating the cooking pies with a broad-ended oar, then savour the results. There’s no better way to make a pizza!
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