Joe and Pat Gartman share the festive photos from their Christmas passeggiata in Locorotondo, Puglia. This village walk is perfect for catching some late-season sunshine and early Yuletide joy.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Ostuni, the celebrated “ White City” of Puglia, with its gleaming hilltop presence. Locorotondo, though much smaller, can be considered the “White Village” of Puglia, for the same reason.
This quaint settlement is abundant in narrow streets, picturesque façades, and flowered balconies encircling St. George’s church in the Old Town. And with sweeping views of the Valle d’Itria from the Punto Panoramico and Via Nardelli, it’s no wonder that Locorotondo has been named one of the Borghi più belli d’Italia, the “Most Beautiful Small Towns in Italy.”
And then there is La Favola di Natale a Locorotondo. The “Christmas Fairytale” in Locorotondo is a continuing series of holiday festivities that begin in November and last through January. I can’t begin to list them all.
Still, in nearby Alberobello, where the town folk are justly proud of their own Christmas traditions, we were told that we must spend at least one evening in Locorotondo to join throngs of villagers and visitors in one of the most joyful of Yuletide passeggiate. And so we did.
A Christmas walk in Locorotondo: Photo gallery
Locorotondo’s Via Morelli has donned its finery and waits for the evening festivities.
Relaxing before the main event. Waiting for sunset at a café in Piazza Dante, in front of the little rectory church, Chiesetta Rettoria Madonna Addolorata.
This lane was so thickly bedecked with holiday greenery and crimson bows that we never found its name!
But later, in the dark, it was still easy to recognise the exuberant trimmings of this happy vicolo.
Via Morelli after dark. A cheerful crowd celebrates beneath the street’s gleaming ornaments and sparkling lights.
A homespun Santa on saxophone, in a barrel-vaulted passageway, warming up for the evening show.
After dusk, the air grows chill. The tables in the piazza are empty. In the glow of Mandragora’s Christmas decorations, people begin to move.
The festive lights have just been switched on at the Mandragora winebar. Mandragora is another name for the legendary Mandrake plant, which is a magical hallucinogen, aphrodisiac, anaesthetic, and poison. I opted for a glass of Bianco di Locorotondo DOC, the local white wine, instead. Wouldn’t harm a fly.
Visitors stream through Porta Napoli into Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. Beyond the arch is the Area Pedonale and the centro storico – the old town. The streets of this historical centre live up to Locorotondo’s name, as they make an almost perfect circle around a maze of narrow alleys.
Many celebrants fortify themselves at the Caffè della Villa in Piazza Vittorio Emanuele before venturing further on the passeggiata.
Crowds choke this narrow street, under garlands of evergreen boughs and between grapevines heavy with clustered lights.
These walkers find some room as they approach a house with the tall, narrow façade and pointed roof typical of Locorotondo’s cummerse houses.
Late at night on Via Nardelli, just outside the pedestrianised zone and the old town. Parked cars reflect the holiday lights, as visitors (who are perhaps a bit footsore) wend their way home.
These people may also be going home, but have strayed into Locorotondo’s lovely Punto Panoramico park. Beyond the monument to the town’s fallen in wars, lights from farmsteads, villages, roadways, and perhaps even the glow from the baroque city of Martina Franca, five miles away, scatter on the vast, dark valley floor.
Want more? Joe and Pat Gartman spent Christmas 2022 in the South of Italy. Here are their photos
Written by Joe Gartman for Italia #212 (Dec/Jan 2025)
All photos © Patricia Gartman