Martina Franca

Martina from St. Martin, the patron saint that is solemnly feasted on November 11th. Franca because of the exemptions ("franchigie") that in XII-XIII century Filippo of Angiò bestowed on people that set up there.
Up on the higher hill of southern Murge, Marina Franca is considered one of the towns most representative of Puglia's Baroque. In its historic centre, where the roads wind twisting in a quasi labyrinthine plan, we find exclusive mansions with smart stone sculpted decorations and churches with beautiful Baroque façades, all in the rosy local limestone. Over the narrower alleys look the typical high narrow vertically developed houses, consisting in a ground floor shed, today often a shop or a garage, living rooms at first floor, bedrooms at second floor and a low attic with several functions: as a room to meet and celebrate (often connecting the ones of several owners), as drying kiln and to store the produces.
The Ducal Palace, with a square plan, a decidedly huge monument, is actually undergoing a heavy restoration, so it's impossible to visit it and to take photos. Entering the centre you arrive to Plebiscite Square, overlooked by St. Martin's collegiate church, by the beautiful Palazzo della Corte, also in Baroque style, and the Clock Tower. The square, narrowing funnel-shaped, debouches into the adjacent Immacolata's Square, bordered southward by an elegant semi-circular arcade, under which are several shops, bars and restaurants, a sort of salon of the town.
From a Belvedere one looks out over Itria's valley, to notice with some disappointment that it is by now scattered with numberless little buildings: to the original sparse "trulli" that used to punctuate it new ones and a large number of more or less candid villas and cottages are added, plunged in an intense green more and more sacked.