Once the Normans had heaved themselves over the Apennines, the formidable range that runs like a spine from the north of Italy to the tip of its boot, they discovered, to their great delight, a largely wild but culturally prosperous and diverse frontier populated by Byzantines, Lombards, and Carolingians.
One of the many gifts the Normans brought to southern Italy was order—a paradoxical commodity given Italy’s sterling reputation as the epicenter of chaos. In addition to their neat and tidy Norman rules, the Normans introduced their neat and tidy stone fences. The Normans were big on boundaries.
I had told Mom that I was going into Alberobello just to get more familiar with the region, but my real purpose was to hunt for an Internet café. It had been several days since I had last logged on. I hated being out of contact with people, especially my children—something my mother could not comprehend. When I was growing up and left my parents for an extended period of time, we never checked in with one another. We operated under the assumption that everything was fine and dandy unless we heard otherwise.
Those days are long gone, and as much as I like being off the grid, an innate sense of wanting to know, just to be sure, seizes me until it can be assuaged.
I was sure my little family was fine, but we have a habit of staying in contact with each other every few days. I was curious to know what was new in their lives. My boys were in their early twenties—Adam in his first year of college, Matt taking a year off college to work, and sixteen-year-old Zoë was on a three-month exchange program in France. Likewise, they would want to know what I was up to. At the very least they would want to know that their Nana and I had arrived safely.
Now, you would think an Internet café would be fairly easy to find in Europe, but finding one in southern Italy became a grail-like quest. I parked the car and set off under gray skies to troll the streets and lanes of Alberobello, which were slick with rain. I did this for a long time, until I got cold and returned to the car.
I drove to Locorotondo, where I also came up empty-handed. I approached a couple of girls—they were probably about fourteen years of age—with long, straight hair and the teenage uniform of hoodies and jeans. They were holding hands, an endearing cultural affectation.
With my trusty phrase book in hand, I asked if they knew of an Internet café. They looked at each other and seemed confused by the question. I tried speaking to them in French, with marginally better success.
The girls took me on a long walk through town, down a steep set of stairs, and along an unpopulated street—a walk of about fifteen minutes—but once we reached our destination it became clear that they had misinterpreted my request and had taken me to a computer store, which was closed anyway.
I thanked them graciously, but as I retraced my steps I muttered unkind things about their intelligence. Really, how many teens these days don’t know about the Internet? Were these girls still playing with dolls?
I wandered into a few hotels and asked about Internet availability, but they either did not have it or did not know what I was talking about.
I headed back to Alberobello. (That I even found my way back to Alberobello says a lot about intuitive driving and the power of prayer.) Motoring slowly through a tangle of narrow roads and lanes, resolutely determined to find an Internet café, I passed the oddly named Twin Pub. In the window sat a computer terminal.
I parked the car and dashed inside. The place was empty save for the old owner/barista. Did he, by chance, have Internet access?
“Sì,” he said, cocking his head toward the computer. He extended his hand for identification; I handed over my passport. He had me sign a form that was written in Italian but that I gathered was a promise I would not launch porn or terrorist activity onto his system.
The formalities concluded, I sat down and logged on. Within seconds I was greeted with fifty-five messages in my inbox. Nothing says you belong to the world more than dozens of messages in your inbox.
After deleting the solicitations to buy Viagra, the heartfelt pleas to help princes spirit money out of Nigeria, and the well-intentioned but thoroughly annoying jokes, cute-animal photos, and homilies forwarded by friends from friends of friends, I was left with five real messages.
Adam announced he had a girlfriend who was so pretty he wasn’t entirely certain he deserved her. Matthew’s message was a simple “’Sup?” I keep telling that boy that I am his mother, not a rap artist, but he clearly sees no distinction between the two. Zoë excitedly reported that she was having a blast on her French exchange. She loved her host family, her new friends, school, and life in France in general. A couple of messages from Colin inquired how Mom and I were faring and how it felt to feel the warm sun on our faces. (I hastily corrected his weather assumptions.) I answered all of them.
Immensely satisfied that all was right with the world and my loved ones, I logged off. Before leaving, I asked the barista for a cappuccino, savored every drop, then drove contentedly back to the trullo.
THE NEXT day, having found my sea legs for travelling in unfamiliar places, I returned to Alberobello and followed the signs to the centro storico. I arrived in front of the imposing neoclassical basilica just as Mass had ended. The grand Piazza Antonio Curri was swarming with people, mostly older men and women strolling leisurely in small groups down Corso Vittorio Emanuele, every one of them dressed in black.
Judging by the alarmed looks on their faces, I had obviously missed a sign informing me that vehicular traffic was prohibited, at least at this time of day. I pulled off into the small Piazza xxvii Maggio and grabbed the last available parking spot.
I got out of the car and took a short stroll. My eyes settled on a small terrace next to a church, and I walked to the edge of it to check out the view. An incredible sight greeted me: a hillside crammed and cascading with hundreds and hundreds of white stucco trulli. This was Rione Monti, a unesco World Heritage site.
Small, conical-shaped stone dwellings are unique to this area of Italy, though not to the world. They can be found in Egypt, Turkey, Malta, Syria, Spain, France, and even Ireland. But the sheer proliferation of these buildings in the southern part of Apulia makes Alberobello the trulli headquarters.
Initially constructed using the drystone method, they served as seasonal or daily shelters for farmers and shepherds, and also housed livestock and farm equipment. When the region came under the feudal system, the ruling counts of Con-versano permitted farmers to build their little stone homes as long as they didn’t use mortar. What the cunning counts were trying to do was evade taxation. A law had been established forbidding the creation of large urban areas without the consent of the emperor’s tribunal. The counts reckoned that if they could keep their little growing fiefdoms under the radar they could pocket the taxes from their tenant farmers and avoid paying taxes to the Crown. Whenever word got out that a royal inspector was in the vicinity, the counts ordered their farmers to dismantle their homes and make themselves scarce. Once the inspector had left—likely curious as to why there were so many little rock piles dotting the fields—the counts called their farmers back to work and let them reconstruct their trulli. You can imagine the scale of such an operation, with three thousand inhabitants in a “non-existent” village. And you can also imagine the farmers’ resentment.
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