Puglia Bike Tour - Conversano to San Marino

Today was an absolutely perfect riding day, with temperatures hovering around 72 degrees. Our pre-lunch ride was @ 24 miles (1,350' elevation gain) through beautiful agricultural fields and olive groves. We stopped in Alberobello for lunch, a Unesco Heritage site where there are more than 1,000 trulli, unique cone-shaped homes. Our local guide, Mimmo, explained the history and the construction of the trulli, which originated in Turkey. When Turkish invaders came to the southern Italian shores, they brought this style of stone construction with them. The first homes were built without mortar, but later homes added cement and mortar to keep out bugs and insects.



Some of these olive trees are over 500 years old!
Could this be one?

Alberobello Trulli

 One of our guides, Simone, prepared a picnic lunch that we ate in the trulli home of one of the local cheesemakers, Pasquale. During our visit to his home, Pasquale showed us how mozzarella was made and even demonstrated how to make burrata mozzarella. After lunch we finished our 39 mile bike ride, with an easy, mainly flat 15 miles to Masseria San Martino, where we'll be staying for the next two nights.

Our Picnic Lunch

Pasquale making Mozzarella

Dinner tonight was at Masseria Brigantino, where we toured the grounds and learned the history of this 6th century masseria, made orrechiette pasta (sadly, Rich was much better at shaping these little "ears" than I was), and had a wonderful dinner finished off with a ricotta cake, which was amazing. I'm going to try to find a recipe and see if I can duplicate this delicious cake for Christmas.