Alberobello Sights & Tips: Highlights in the city of the Trulli houses

Alberobello is a city with a strong tourist industry. In the main streets, you will find a souvenir shop, a restaurant or something similar in almost every house. With a population of only about 10,000, the place still often seems lively and bustling, because the numerous visitors often cause quite a hustle and bustle.

Nevertheless, it is definitely worth a visit, and there are also a few side streets and areas where you can take beautiful photos without people jumping in front of your lens, away from the tourist hustle and bustle.

How long to stay in Alberobello?

You should plan on spending at least 3-4 hours here to see most of the highlights. However, I would rather recommend an overnight stay in Alberobello, because then you can see the place both during the day and at night and also have the opportunity to stay overnight in one of the traditional houses. That in itself is a highlight, because you don’t often get to experience overnight stays like this.

Guided tours in Alberobello?

This article here actually gives you enough information to get around in Alberobello on your own. But especially if you don’t have much time or if you want to learn more details about the place without reading a lot, then guided tours with a local are a good option. Fortunately, there are some very well-rated tours in Alberobello that also include transportation from other places to Alberobello and back:

• Tour of the trulli houses with a local
• pasta and tiramisu course at a local’s
• Guided tour of Alberobello Trulli with transfer included (from Bari, Polignano or Monopoli)
• Gastronomic Tour

What does Alberobello mean?

“Albero” is the Italian word for “tree”. “Bello” is the Italian word for “beautiful”. In the past, the area was characterized by many forests, which is where the city’s name “beautiful tree” came from.

What are the Trulli?

The trulli (singular: trullo) are mostly whitewashed limestone houses with the typical conical roofs, built according to traditional methods.

Trulli houses can be found throughout the area around Alberobello, but in the city itself, the concentration is so high that you feel a bit like in a Smurf village, or at least in a separate little world within Italy.

And because it is all so special, the place was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List back in 1996.

Many of the trulli also have special signs on their roofs, such as Christian or even magical symbols. These have different meanings.

In one of the trulli, I discovered a plaque explaining the signs. Although in Italian, but I took the trouble to translate the texts on it. You can see them in the following picture:

Some of the souvenir shops also offer courses for a small fee where you can learn more about the meaning of the Trulli symbols.

Getting around and parking in Alberobello

The best way to reach Alberobello is by car. There are even some free parking lots just 10 to 15 minutes from the center. I always found the best parking lots at the Parcheggio libero near the train station (Google Maps Link). This costs nothing, but you can donate money at the entrance if you wish. Although the parking lot offers plenty of space, there is often so much crowding in Alberobello, especially during the high season, that it can be full there as well. The earlier you arrive in the morning, the more likely it is that you will still be able to find a space.

You can also reach Alberobello by train. The red line Ferrovie Sud-Est, for example, runs directly from Bari to Alberobello. You can find suitable connections here on the website. The train station is not very far from the city center, where you can see the many trulli houses.

Where in Alberobello are the trulli houses?

You can’t really miss the trulli. Alberobello is not that big. Everything is easily accessible on foot. However, there are 2 slightly separate trulli areas in the village:

• Rione Monti: the largest trulli area, but also very touristy.
• Aia Piccola: a rather smaller, historic district.
• Largo Martellotta: is the central square between these two districts, where there are many stalls and restaurants.

If you don’t have much time to spend in Alberobello, it makes the most sense to stroll through these two parts of the town and soak up the atmosphere.

North of Largo Martelotta, there is still a lot going on, but there you will find more of the typical shopping streets and only a few trulli left, mainly in the area around the church.

Where to stay in Alberobello?

Since many tourists want to visit Alberobello, there are also many accommodation options. An absolute highlight is, of course, spending the night in a trullo itself. You will find the most of these in the trulli zones. Hotel booking platforms often even offer a trulli filter. But even outside the center there are many trulli to stay in.

Alberobello Sights:

Alberobello has a lot to offer. All the sights are listed below and can also be found on the map:

A little tip: you shouldn’t always 100% trust the images of places of interest on Google Maps. Often, people have added generic images of Alberobello to all sorts of places of interest on Maps, so you don’t really know whether the place of interest is depicted or not.

1. Trulli Museum

At the Museo del Territorio “Casa Dottor Giacomo Giuseppe Pezzolla”, you will learn a lot about the history of the city , the trulli houses and how they have developed over time in Alberobello.

The museum itself is located in a restored old residence, which has been a national monument itself since 1930.

2. The historic trulli district

The most beautiful part of town, full of trulli, is, in my opinion, directly behind the Trulli Museum in the south-east of the town, along Via Guiseppe Verdi and its small side streets.

It is a rather historic area, where many things still look the same as they did a hundred years ago. In some cases, you can also go inside individual trulli and see how people once lived here.

There are only a few souvenir shops in this part of the village, but holiday apartments have been set up in some of the trulli.

3. Museum of local history in a two-storey trullo

All trulli in Alberobello actually consist of only one floor. The exception is the Trullo Sovrano, which contains an additional independent floor – hence the name “Sovrano” (aka “sovereign” aka “independent”).

Today it houses a local history museum where you can also marvel at the house from the inside for an entrance fee of €2.

4. Trulli Church – Chiesa Parrocchiale di Sant’Antonio da Padova

The Chiesa di Sant’Antonio is a unique Greek cross church because it is made entirely of trulli. However, it was only built in 1927.

In the middle of the church is a 21.50-meter-high conical dome, on which the cross also rises. This dome looks particularly exciting from the inside. You can visit the church without paying an entrance fee.

5. The souvenir streets

As the names of the two streets Via Monte Sabotino and Via Monte S. Michele suggest, these lead up the mountain.

These are the two busiest streets in the city, framed by trulli. Souvenir hunters will find what they are looking for here, because one souvenir shop follows the next and they all somehow offer the same products.

But it’s still fun to stroll along the narrow streets, jump from one trullo to the next and see what’s on offer. Many of the souvenirs are also handmade, although they are not always cheap.

Great souvenirs that you can find here are:

• Handmade trulli figures
• A Pumo: a kind of Puglian lucky charm made of ceramic, which can often be found in a trullo.
• Olive oil from the region

6. Church: Chiesa Madre dei Santi Medici Cosma e Damiano

From almost all the elevations in Alberobello, you can see the two striking church towers of the main church in the area.

The two bell towers are dedicated to the patrons of the city – the two doctors Cosma and Damiano, hence the long name. Inside the church, there are some old wooden statues and paintings. You can enter the church for free. Especially on Sundays, the local mass is always very popular.

7. The best ice cream in the Gelateria La Bottega del Gelato

I have really tried all the ice cream parlors in the center of Alberobello and can say with a high degree of certainty that you get the best Italian ice cream at La Bottega del Gelato. There is a sales area and right next to it, in full view of everyone, an area where the ice cream is made by hand.

There is a wide selection of ice cream flavors, some of them with extraordinary flavors. But all the classics are also available (e.g. pistachio ice cream 🤤 ). The very nice saleswomen also make really large portions. All in all, this gelateria is a true gelato paradise. To be honest, I enjoyed by far the best ice cream here during my entire trip to Puglia.

8. Casa D’Amore

Oh, how wonderful, there is a house of love in Alberobello – well, not quite. Actually, the name comes from the first owner of this house: Francesco D’Amore.

And why is the house a tourist attraction? Quite simply because it was the first house in Alberobello built with mortar, which suggests that it was the first house built after the city declared independence. Before that, the inhabitants were only allowed to build with dry stone.

9. Largo Martelotta

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, Largo Martelotta is one of the city’s central squares. There are many market stalls selling fresh food, but also ice cream parlors, restaurants and yes, who would have thought… souvenir shops.

A little hidden at the eastern end of the square, near the public toilets, a few narrow stairways lead through the park “Villa Comunale Belvedere Parco” up to the historic part of the city: “Aia Piccola”.

10. Alberobello by night

Alberobello is particularly beautiful when it gets dark outside and the many lanterns and lamps transform the city into a sea of lights. The trulli then have a completely different look and it feels a bit like you are in a completely different city.

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Alberobello is certainly one of the highlights of any vacation in Puglia. What attractions in Alberobello are still missing from the list? Write it in the comments.