|
Imagine Italy as a
shapely leg whose foot is shod by a Manolo Blahnik
high-heeled boot. Puglia (Apulia), rarely
visited by English-speaking travelers, is
Italy's elegant stiletto heel. The
southern reaches of the Salentine Peninsula are
virtually surrounded by the immemorial waters of
the
Adriatic on the east, the
Ionian Sea to the south east, and the Gulf
of Taranto, across which lies the Region of
Calabria.
In the mountainous north, Puglia is bordered, in
clockwise fashion, by
Basilicata,
Campania,
and Molise.
Albania is a mere 80 kilometers (50 miles)
across the Adriatic.
Puglia is exceptionally sun-soaked and dry, with
a scarcity of fresh water, so water is carried
by aqueduct and pipeline from Campania, largely
drawn from the Sele River.
Originally settled by early italic tribes,
Puglia was colonized by the Greeks during the
5th and 6th centuries BC. However, as with
the rest of southern Italy, it was subjugated by
the
Romans in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC.
The
Goths, then the
Lombards held sway in their turn, followed
by the
Byzantines, then the
Normans.
For a time, the Puglian City of Melfi was
the capital of the Norman territories, but when
Robert Guiscard conquered Sicily to
establish the Kingdom of Sicily, with
Palermo as
its capital, Puglia fell into provincial status,
a status it retained when the Kingdom of Sicily
transmogrified into the Kingdom of Naples.
Ultimately, during the 12th and early 13th
centuries, Puglia was absorbed by the
Holy Roman Empire. Then the Turks, and
Venetians had their turn. Finally, Puglia
was incorporated into the modern state of Italy,
in 1861.
The modern English-speaking traveler will find
Puglia exotic in many ways, partly due to its
historical evolution, but also because socially
and culturally, Puglia is just now catching up
to the rest of Italy. Throughout it's
history, up until recent times, feudalism
persisted. Agrarian and social reforms,
which were begun in the late 19th century, only
really started to take hold in the mid 20th
century.
While the official language is standard Italian,
among themselves people in different areas will
speak dialects not heard elsewhere. In the
north, a version of Neapolitan Italian, in the
far south, a Sicilian variation, elsewhere
dialects that are heavily Greek or Albanian in
flavor.
As
you explore Puglia's cities and towns, and
outlying areas, you will encounter Greek and
Roman ruins, paleo-christian ruins, and public
and ecclesiastical buildings done in every major
style from Romanesque, to Gothic to Renaissance.
You will even encounter a local architectural
style called "barocco leccese", a
fanciful, almost hyperbolistic strain of the
Baroque, found in Lecce and other
towns and cities.
In
Puglia, and no where else, you will also find a
very peculiar type of building - the trullo
- a beehive-shaped, whitewashed, mortarless
structure made of stone, usually used as barns
in farming areas within the Val d'Itria,
but also used as housing in fairly large-scale
communities like Alberobello, where over
1000 Trulli are situated on terraces. The
original Trulli date back hundreds, if not
thousands of years, but the curious style has
been revived by modern homeowners and not a few
resort owners who have created Trulli tourist
villages.
Apart from mountainous areas in the north and
north west, Puglia is mostly a plain where
farmers produce olives (and olive oil), grapes
(and wine), cereals, almonds, figs, tobacco, and
livestock. It is reliably said that Puglia
produces 10% of all the wine consumed in Europe
- which is pretty staggering when you think
about it. Or perhaps not when you consider that
until recently that Puglian wine (and olive
oils) were used to dilute finer products grown
elsewhere. However, vintage wines and olive
oils of some repute are increasingly being
produced in the region.
Not surprisingly, fishing is another main
support of the regional economy, although
tourism is increasingly important. Industrial
activities include the manufacture of chemicals,
cement, iron, steel, and plastics, and the
production of refined oil and gas.
Visit in summer for clear blue skies and
beach-life (average Jul and Aug temperatures can
get above 30°C and sometimes as high as 40°C or
50°C. Spring and autumn are moderate, and
therefore more climactically accommodating to
Northern Europeans and North Americans.
Winter is cooler with temperatures usually above
0°C, and only occasionally rising above 15°C. |
|
