Putignano

The carnival of Putignano claims the oldest origins in Europe: it was born of fear of the Turks, when the Knights of Rhodes decided to bring to safety here, away from the coast, a Byzantine icon and the relics of saint Stephen kept at Monopoli. It was during the procession for that transfer, tradition says, that the Propaggini were born: on the twenty-sixth of December, still today, the people of Putignano climb onto a makeshift stage and mock the local authorities in dialect over problems left unsolved. From there the longest carnival there is stretches all the way to Shrove Tuesday, with seven Thursdays each marked out for a category of people, of the priests, of the nuns, of the widowers, of the married women, and the most heartfelt is that of the cuckolds, when the Academy of the Horns elects the Great Cuckold of the year among the town's notables.

The symbol of all this is Farinella, the two-coloured mask named after the ground mix of chickpeas and barley that is also the town's typical dish. Off season, Putignano remains the white town of the Valle d'Itria, ringed by the walls that the bailiff Carafa rebuilt in the fifteenth century with round and square towers. And under its streets hides another surprise: in 1931, while digging a sewer, workers accidentally broke through the roof of the Trullo cave, the first karst cavity in Apulia opened to the public, all stalactites and calcite blooms glittering under artificial light.