The valleyTown
Cisternino
Cisternino is a small white town on the edge of the Murgia plateau, looking down over the whole of Valle d’Itria. It is one of Italy’s official most beautiful villages, and the place people come to eat: the butchers grill what you choose at the counter and serve it at tables in the street. The countryside around it is the densest trulli country there is.
The old town
The old town is small enough to learn in an evening and pretty enough to keep walking anyway. Its streets are whitewashed to the last step, with outside staircases climbing to first-floor doors, arches over the lanes, and pots of basil and geraniums on every ledge. Start at the Torre Civica, the medieval tower by the mother church of San Nicola, take Via Basiliani through the middle, and finish at the belvedere on the far side, where the town simply ends in a wall and the valley begins below it. The view from there, trulli and olive groves to the horizon, is the one to see at sunset.
The fornelli
Cisternino’s butchers are also its restaurants. You go to the counter, point at what you want, bombette (rolls of pork wrapped around cheese), sausage, lamb, and they grill it in the fornello behind the shop and bring it to your table with bread, a salad and a jug of wine. It is cheap, it is fast, and on a summer night the whole town is out doing it. The lanes around Piazza Vittorio Emanuele are where to look; there is no wrong door.
The valley around it
Cisternino sits at the centre of the trulli country. The roads out to Locorotondo, to Martina Franca, to the hamlets of Casalini and Caranna, run between dry-stone walls with a trullo behind every other one, and this is the countryside our house Uliveto sits in, ten minutes from the old town. It is a place for slow driving and for stopping at a masseria for cheese and oil. The Adriatic, at Torre Canne and Savelletri, is about half an hour away.
Good to know
- How far is Cisternino from the airport?
- Brindisi airport (BDS) is about 50 km, around 45 minutes by car. Bari airport (BRI) is about 85 km, a little over an hour. The nearest station is on the Bari to Lecce line in the valley below the town, a few kilometres away, so you will want a car or a taxi.
- What is the best evening to visit?
- Any summer evening after eight, when the fornelli light up and the streets fill. In August the town is busy every night; come at seven to find a table without waiting. The Monday morning market is the other lively moment.
- How far is Cisternino from Ostuni?
- About 15 km, twenty minutes by car on the road that runs along the edge of the valley. Locorotondo is 8 km, Martina Franca 12 km and Alberobello 15 km, so Cisternino is the town to base yourself in if you want to see them all on foot and by bicycle.
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Locorotondo
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