Off the beaten track: Alberobello, town of the cone-shaped roofs

Alberobello is a small town in Southern Italy, known as the capital of trulli, thanks to the fairy tale 15th-century traditional domes adorning most of the town’s buildings.

Image via @ *Blunight 72*

Image via @ valeriani armando

The typical trulli building are usually cone-shaped, and found in the Puglia region of Italy and built without mortar. The town has over 1500 buildings with such roofs and it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Image via @ valeriani armando

Image via @ Elizabeth Thomsen

Image via @ rmx

The history of trulli dates back to the 15th century when the King of Naples added a tax to new buildings. That’s when peasants decided to build these simple, easily pulled-down structures, so they could be seen as temporary. The eye-catching roofs were made yby simply stacking stones in circular rings. Surprisingly the structure was found to be very stable, and the tradition was kept on.

Image via @ valeriani armando 

Find out more about amazing places around the world, in our Off the Beaten Track series.