UNESCO trulli — the conical stone houses that look like a fairy tale
Alberobello is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Puglia whose entire Rione Monti district is a hillside of whitewashed trulli — conical dry-stone houses with grey limestone roofs that have been built and rebuilt in this valley for centuries. The trulli were originally built without mortar so they could be quickly dismantled to avoid property taxes (a running theory the locals enjoy). The surrounding Valle d'Itria produces Primitivo wine, burrata that is made fresh each morning, and the slow-roasted lamb and orecchiette dishes that make Puglia one of Italy's great food regions.
The trulli of Alberobello were built primarily in the 14th–17th centuries by the Acquaviva feudal lords who controlled the region, using a dry-stone construction technique that has roots in Neolithic and Bronze Age shelter-building across the Mediterranean. The no-mortar rule was indeed tied to a real tax dodge — Philip IV of Spain's Kingdom of Naples taxed permanent stone settlements, so the Acquavivas had the peasants build without mortar to argue the structures weren't permanent. When Charles III of Spain visited and saw the poverty, he granted Alberobello township status in 1797 and the t…