When we planned out Voyage to southern Italy, one of the things on my bucket list was to stay in a trullo--the pointy roofed stone houses of Puglia. Trulli are dotted throughout the countryside, some in the more ancient style of chopped-top cone, others abandoned and in ruins, and many in farm complexes made up of as many as 6-8 trulli. Their roofs can be adorned with painted hex symbols by their owners and they are topped with a wide variety of finial, sometimes in the shape of stars. They are restored into B&Bs and year-round villas with some being very chic. But nothing can prepare the Voyager when he visits the UNESCO town of Alberobello, with over 1600 trulli clustered in the town center.

In Alberobello, there are many wonderful gift shops, and while some offer the standard tourist kitsch, what I loved about the town is the amount of local artisans offering their hand made products. You can buy beautiful jewelry in the many different religious and pagan shapes found painted on the pointy roofs, local pottery and ceramics, wooden bread stamps carved with your initials, hand made pocket knives (I came home with a sommelier version)... but my favorite local craft are the miniature trulli. They are all made using local stone to mimic the real stone and techniques used to built the real trulli. There are tiny ones that you can hold in your hand and large ones that you can place in your garden.

--GVI

Perhaps a thousand years before Christianity adopted the egg as a part of the Roman Catholic holiday of Easter, the ancient Romans believed that "omne vivum ex ovo" - all life comes from the egg. The egg was a symbol of a rebirth in spring after the lean days of winter were over. Archaeologists believe that ancient Romans decorated eggs with dyes using onion skins, spices, beets and carrots (a tradition that is still done today in many Italian families). They were used as offerings and gifts during pagan spring rituals and festivals.
Today, the Uova di Pasqua carries on that ancient tradition...

A popular tradition is to give chocolate eggs as gifts, which themselves can be elegantly decorated. The simplest tradition involves giving a large chocolate, hollow egg to each family member, which is broken to reveal a present or treat inside.

Real eggs are died red (in the Greek tradition), representing when Mary Magdalen presented an egg to Emperor Tiberius Caesar as it miraculously turned red, symbolizing the blood of Christ. But the also decorate and paint eggs, often in glorious ways. Any artist can understand why--the egg is such a beautiful, blank canvas...

--Jerry Finzi

The beautiful plate above by King of Mice Studios