Martina Franca, Italy Hotels, Vacations, Tourism

The trulli are still plentiful by the time you reach MARTINA FRANCA , a surprising town with a tangible Moorish flavour and a lively passeggiata at weekends. It is reputed to have been founded by Tarentine settlers fed up with constant Saracen attacks during the tenth century, but it was the Angevin prince of Táranto who bolstered the community in the early fourteenth century by granting it certain tax privileges. The town derives its name from this – franca meaning duty or stamp. Today its medieval core is adorned with some of the most subtle and least overbearing examples of architecture from the … more »