Trulli Amazing:  your own Hobbit House for 50,000!

Forget West Van, you could have your very own Hobbit House for 50,000 Euros and hey, it's getting cheaper in Canadian Dollars by the day!

Alternatively you could do as we did and rent a "trulli" for the night.  This is the one that we slept in:

Visiting the Puglia region without seeing Alborobello's Trulli structures would be like going to Paris and not seeing the Mona Lisa (er, that would be me).

The most popular explanation for these strange structures is that they were built as a tax avoidance device.  The story goes that taxes were applied to houses.  These buildings, being assembled from dry stones could then be dis-assembled every time the tax inspector came round.

While I bow to no one in my respect for the average Puglian's tax avoidance instincts, I just cannot imagine them tearing down their own house every time the tax man called.  So for me the mystery remains.