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OK, we’re in Puglia and have finished a day and a half of biking with Zephyr Adventures. So far it’s great, absolutely great. We hiked the Inca Trail with them three years ago, loved the way they do tours, and so we signed up with them again to do this bike trip. And so far they’re living up to their reputation – great food, beautiful routes, fantastic food. That all works for me!

The first day was a loop around Conversano and then back to the hotel. We forgot our camera, but some of the pictures would have been fantastic – a huge field of fennel, another of red leaf lettuce, and of course olives and grapes forever.

Today we biked through Alberobello, another World Heritage site, in this case because of the concentration of trulli buildings.  “Trulli” are traditional Puglian dry stone conical huts; you see them all over the region, but in Alberobello they make up most of the buildings in the old part of town. Mark & I had lunch there and then we continued on to Locorotondo, where we’re staying in a trulli-style hotel out in the middle of nowhere. Well, not quite nowhere, since we’re right near an olive oil … refinery? mill? factory? … I don’t know what you call it, but it’s where they turn olives into olive oil.  Needless to say, the tasting opportunity at the end of the tour was the highlight.

Here are some pics…

Biking through grape country. Millions of grapes. These are table grapes, bigger and more protected than wine grapes. See? I’ve already learned something on this trip!

Table grapes, protected from birds, with a trullo (the singular form, trulli is plural) in the field

Trulli (and tourists) in Alberobello

More trulli in Alberobello

Mark in his Zephyr Adventure shirt