The white town from the olive plain

Ostuni only makes sense from below. The old town caps a hill about eight kilometres inland, and from the plain it reads as a single block of lime-white houses with the cathedral tower on top and the Adriatic behind. The best of that view is on the roads climbing from the coastal side, and the church of the Madonna della Nova, on the slope just outside the centre, is the easiest landmark to aim for.

What makes the frame work is depth: silver olive canopies in the foreground, dry-stone walls, then a kilometre of empty ground before the town. Shot from the shoulder of the road, with you twenty metres ahead of the camera, the town fills the space above you without anyone standing on a wall.

Light comes in from the east in the morning, so the front of the town is lit before nine and goes flat by midday; late afternoon puts the sun behind the hill and gives you a bright sky with the town as a pale shape, which works better than it sounds. The whitest, cleanest look is the first hour of the day.

These are working olive groves, not parkland. Stay on the verge or on public lanes, and expect farm traffic during the October and November harvest.