"Ostuni is the panoramic city par excellence, every house is a belvedere, every trattoria is a Bellavista, at every window there is a poet who looks at the plain below the olive trees that change color according to the winds […] In Ostuni the houses are white, with milk and lime, they are white to the point of hurting the eyes, the walls are white, the windows, the doors, the stairs, everything is unbelievably white. […] In Ostuni you can understand what it means to stay away from the sun […] not wishing more novels, to stop thinking about distant journeys, here is the charm of all the cities of the Southern Seas, here there is the equator at reach." (Ettore Della Giovanna)
Ostuni, the White City, is picturesque and waiting to be discovered. Popular tourist destination Ostuni boasts a wonderful medieval village, full of narrow streets and dwellings whitewashed with lime in a maze that resembles an Arab casbah. A walk in the old city, called "terra" to distinguish it from the more recent "marina", offers picturesque views through alleys, steep stairways, courtyards and small squares overlooked by white houses embellished with geraniums, craft shops, typical restaurants and small shops.
The magic of Ostuni is linked to the characteristic coloring with lime painting of the ancient village, a practice still strictly respected by the residents. At the center of the village there is the fifteenth-century Romanesque-Gothic Cathedral with a large rose window with 24 rays of rare beauty. Along via Cattedrale, which divides the medieval heart of the city in two, is the former Carmelite Monastery, home to the Museum of Pre-Classic Civilizations of the Southern Murgia where the cast of Delia, a pregnant woman who lived 25,000 years ago, is exposed.
Churches and aristocratic houses follow one another in the old city surrounded by the Aragonese walls where Porta Nova and Porta San Demetrio open. The countryside of Ostuni, on the other hand, is dotted with farms, many of which have been turned into cozy holiday farms and luxury resorts. Among others, Santa Caterina with the high octagonal tower at the fortified farm, Lo Spagnulo and Masseria Cappuccini with its trulli.
