Locorotondo appears ethereally as on a cloud floating above the red dirt, olive groves, and trulli (͚hobbit-like͛, conical stone dwellings) that are scattered across the countryside in the Valle d’Itria in Puglia.
It͛s not just another Italian ͚white city͛ on a hill, but one with an obviously proud community in neat white cottages and colourful blooms along the maze of narrow paved alley-ways. centred around the Cathedral church on top of the hill.
Down in the Friday Market in the piazza and streets below the church there͛s a ͚ring-in͛, an aggressive misfit, not of this happy community.
He is selling the most delicious-looking plump porcini mushrooms the size of dinner plates. Shouting obscenities to be understood by any ear, he grabs Paul͛s camera as he attempts to photograph the ͚mushies͛. Paul’s angry response with equally colourful expletives and red face had me as referee to avoid a nasty incident.