Puglia, Italy’s “Heel of the Boot”

Posted On May 30, 2022

Rome, Florence, and Venice get a lot of hype in the tourism world – and for good reason. However, Italy is a treasure trove of wonderful smaller cities, sites, and cultures. A region that has long been on my bucket list was Puglia, the “heel of the boot”. You may recognize Puglia from photos of “trulli”, the little white houses with cone roofs, or the photos of Italian grannies making and selling homemade pasta in the streets of Bari. Puglia is well worth a solid week or more of exploration.

*A view of Matera. Photo © Buona Forchetta*

Getting to Puglia

Two major airport serve the area: Bari, which has more flight options, and Brindisi. Normally we fly United or Lufthansa to Europe, but I didn’t have luck finding any Star Alliance award flights into Bari, so instead we booked economy flights on points through Air France’s Flying Blue program, by transferring miles (Flying Blue is a transfer partner of both American Express and Chase Ultimate Rewards). We flew direct to Paris, and after a several hour layover at CDG we flew direct to Bari. Puglia is quite a distance by train from many other major parts of Italy, so I found using Rome2Rio.com to be helpful in comparing train vs plane routes for the remainder of our travels in Italy.

*A street in Aberobello, leading up to Aia Piccola.*

Once in Puglia, public transportation isn’t as straightforward as other parts of Italy. The train line runs north to south along the coast connecting major cities like Bari, Brindisi, and Lecce; for other sites like Aberobello and Matera, public bus rides can be long, require connections, and may have infrequent departures, so the best option may be renting a car (something I dread in Italy!) or hiring a driver/guide for certain excursions that are difficult to do with public transportation. Since we had my parents with us, we opted to hire a driver and guide for many excursions.

In this area, you won’t find a lot of chain hotels, which I love! We were able to use our Capitol One Spark business card to pay for our accommodations in Polignano and Lecce, and then use the points earned from the sign on bonus to reimburse the cost of our lodging. If you have a stash of Chase Ultimate Rewards, booking hotels through their portal would be another great way to get your lodging covered for free with points and miles.

*A view from the city of Locorotondo. Trulli houses dot the landscape. Photo © Buona Forchetta*

Planning an Itinerary in Puglia

A not uncommon lunch in Puglia for us: local chacuterie, local cheeses such as caciocavallo, and taralli, a local type of cracker (I loved this version with curcuma, or tumeric. Photo © Buona Forchetta

Since Puglia is a bit off the beaten path, it is best to plan to spend a full week. Honestly, we could have had plenty to do had we stayed longer! Below is our itinerary. We chose Polignano a Mare as our home base for northern Puglia rather than Bari because it looked like such a beautiful seaside town, but Bari could serve as a home base, with more public transportation options, as could Aberobello (where you can stay in a traditional trullo house – touristy perhaps, but I thought it looked like fun!). Many agritourismos exist in the area, and can offer onsite activities including cooking classes, but keep in mind a car is required. Lecce is certainly the best home base for exploring southern Puglia. With more days, we would have spent a night or two in Matera, and also spent a few more days in Lecce exploring the small towns in the most southern part of the boot.

For getting around Puglia, we hired a driver for the 4 of us to minimize stress (this is vacation, after all!) and also to make it easier to enjoy all of the wonderful local wine while out and about. Gianni from SERVICEPINTO did an excellent job shuffling us around for the week, always with a smile, and we donned him with the nickname “Johnny on the Spot”.

When to go: May is about perfect. The spring rains had faded, we had sunshine nearly every day, fields were green, flowers were in bloom with poppies dotting the countryside, and comfortable temperatures hovered around 65-75 degrees. September and October will also offer similar dry pleasant weather and fewer crowds. Summer, particularly August, is unbearably crowded (and hot), so I would avoid.

Our 7 Day Itinerary for Puglia

Day	Lodging	Activities
1	Polignano a Mare	Fly into Bari in the afternoon, evening in Polignano a Mare
2	Polignano a Mare	Day trip to Aberobello, Locorotondo, Martina Franca, Ostuni by car
3	Polignano a Mare	Day trip to Castel del Monte and several local wineries. (alternatively, consider hopping on the train and spending day 3 visiting Ostuni ).
4	Polignano a Mare	Day trip to Matera (we hired a car to get there, and explored on our own). I would recommend spending the night in Matera to enjoy the city at night.
5	Lecce	Lunch at a Salento winery, arrive in Lecce, exploration of Lecce
6	Lecce	Day trip: Otranto, Specchia, Corigliano d’Otranto castle by car
7	Lecce	Lecce

Exploring Northern Puglia, Near Bari

This post will highlight some of our favorites in the north part of Puglia: Aberobello, Ostuni, Locorotondo,, Maria Franca, Castel del Monte, and Polignano a Mare. Stay tuned for future posts covering the rest of our travels in Puglia!

Polignano a Mare

A charming little seaside town perched on the top of rocky limestone cliffs, Polignano a Mare was the perfect home base to slow our pulse and enjoy a little la dolce vita. It is a very small walkable town, accessible by train or car. With four of us traveling together after a long overnight flight, it made sense to arrange for a taxi from the Bari airport, rather than depend on public transportation.

Traveling with my parents, we opted for hotel Covo di Seraceni. It had a wonderful location, rooms with sea-view balconies, and the necessities for traveling with older parents: English speaking staff and a working elevator. The breakfast buffet was great, but I was disappointing that there were no coffee makers in the room or in the lobby….coffee on that wonderful balcony would have been a perfect start to the day, but what can one do.

Polignano a Mare is very quaint and charming. While I am sure it sees throngs of tourists of all nationalities in the summer, May was relatively peaceful. It was rare to see a tourist in Polignano outside of our hotel (and hence, we used the hotel only for sleep and breakfast). At night, the locals showed up in droves for the evening “passagata“. Small bars along Via Roma and near Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II were packed at apertivo hour, and we loved strolling Via Roma’s lyric-lined street and peaking at the tiny doors.

A cooking class at Masseria San Pietro (about 20-30 minutes outside of Polignano) was one of the highlights of the week for my parents, and highly recommended. It is also a wonderful way to try local dishes. Italians eat seasonally, and in Puglia (a poorer region of Italy), vegetables are used amply and very little meat is consumed. In May, a common appetizer was fava beans with rape, a bitter green. Focaccia was the local bread, cooked in a gluttonous amount of olive oil. And yes, in Polignano, there was seafood! While you may see Instagram photos of a gorgeous restaurant in a grotto (cave) called Grotta Palazzese. It may be worth checking out for an apertivo, but word on the street was that it was touristy and not the greatest food. Our favorite meal in Polignano was at Osteria di Chichibio, a lovely seafood restaurant by our hotel. English is not well spoken here, and the menu seemed overwhelming, , which led to some panic from my parents as to what we might actually eat. My solution for this is to ask the waiter, cosa consiglia? I was immediately led to the fish counter in which the waiter, hands flying in gesticulation, recommended a particular fish and some type of pasta. I walked back to the table with a vague understanding of our meal. What arrived was a work of art – beautifully sliced and cooked fish in a fresh tomato sauce, perfectly al dente pasta,

The coastline of Polignano a Mare. *Photo © Buona Forchetta*

Aberobello

*The trulli houses in Aberobelllo often have lovely gardens.* *Photo © Buona Forchetta*

Aberobello could easily be worthy of an overnight, or a day trip from Bari or surrounding towns. From Bari, there is a 35 minute public bus. Staying in Polignano, a car was by far the best option (think 25 minute drive, vs nearly a 2 hour bus ride with changes and no great options by train), so we hired a guide and driver for the day and stacked several day trips together for efficiency.

Showing us around Aberobello was Katia De Carlo, a local guide who grew up and still resides in Aberobello. The highlight of Aberobello are the trulli houses, small houses built of dry mortarless rock dating back to the 14th century – you will see them all over Puglia but most prominently in Aberobello. We began with a lovely panorama of the city and the main cluster of about 1000 trulli houses. She then took us to Aia Piccola, a non-touristy district of about 400 trulli houses. You can reach this neighborhood from the main piazza along Largo Martellotta easily: while facing the main core of the trulli district from the piazza, take a left and head up the hill, passing underneath a large collection of hats strung over the street. At the top of the hill, take a right and you will find yourself in a quiet, peaceful local neighborhood. A few small bed and breakfasts can be found in this area, and would be my pick if I were to stay overnight here.

Martina Franca & Locorotondo

*Martina Franca*. *Photo © Buona Forchetta*

Martina Franca is a lovely stop and just 15 minutes drive from Aberobello; without a car, you can easily reach it by a short 22 minute train ride from Aberobello. It is a quaint hilltop town with Renaissance and Baroque towers and gates from the days when it was a walled city.

Locorotondo was an unexpected stop for us after a winery we had planned to visit for lunch had to close for the day. I really liked this beautiful village – a maze of whitewashed pedestrian-only streets with curved buildings and pathways, creating a lovely ambiance with wonderful panoramas of the valley below.

We enjoyed a lunch of charcuterie with wine tasting at L’Arco Dei Tipici. The local wine is a sparkling white called – no surprises – Bianco Locorotondo DOC. We highly enjoyed the Valle d’Itria Minutolo white wine we tried from Castillo. I was very glad for this unexpected addition as I thought it was a perfect lunch stop.

I was starting to remind myself by this point how distinct the local food products in each Italian region are, and even within a region, distinct variations between different cities and towns, though with similar themes. Typical cheeses are mozzarella and caciocavallo. There is always a platter of cured meats, which I would loosely refer to as salami, but all with different preparations, seasonings, and curing methods yielding different flavors, spices, and textures. Taralli, a local type of cracker, is often served with an apertivo or charcuterie. There is always a local pasta – in Locorotondo, the local pasta (which we did not try) is u tridde, made of local pecorino cheese and parsley in broth. Elsewhere in Puglia, orchiette pasta dominated. And of course, the local wines and grappa (strong liquors sipped after dinner as a digestivo).

Ostuni

We continued on with our guide Katia to Ostuni. Since it is near the coast and on the train line it is an easy 30 minute train ride from Polignano if you don’t have a car.

Ostuni is a beautiful, hilltop town with a white wall and white buildings with small alleys and staircases, reminiscent of Greece. Yes, another small walled hilltop town, but a completely different vibe and one not to miss. A night or two here would have been lovely, to have time to get lost in the labyrinth of the old town with a gelato in hand. This a very hilly town, and we saw many tourists being touted up the steep narrow roads in vintage Ape Callesino vehicles.

Along with La Piazzetta Cattedrale, the Arco di Scoppa, and other sights, we stopped briefly in the Museo Civilta Preclassiche della Murgia Meridonale to see the skeleton of a woman and unborn child dating back to around 25,000 BC (I wouldn’t recommend going to the museum without a guide since there are no translations, only descriptions in Italian, and the museum is small).

*The outer walls of Ostuni.* *Photo © Buona Forchetta*

Castel del Monte

Castel del Monte is a bit out of the way and probably worth a stop only if you happen to be in this area exploring wineries (which we were!). It is an impressive octagonal fortress constructed in the 1240s. The interior is bare, as any marble and decorations were long ago stripped away by looters. An hour visit is plenty. There are many wineries nearby to visit (appointment only). An hour’s drive away through pretty countryside, our favorite winery visit of the day was Tormaresca, part of the Antinori empire. The host and tour were great, and we particularly enjoyed the wines. Much closer to the castle is Torrevento Winery, located in a former Benedictine monetary from the 1600’s.

*A view of wine country from the Tormaresca winery. Photo © Buona Forchetta*

Matera

Matera is a gem in the south of Italy, and unlike anywhere else in Italy you will visit. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, where residents trace back 7,000 years ago. We also affectionately referred to it as the land of 20,000 cobblestone stairs. (For those who are not eager to traipse up and down stairs, a few streets in the heart of the old city are passable by small car).

Matera has many caves, or “sassi” carved into the rock. These sassi have been inhabited for centuries. An effort was made to modernize the area due to its extreme poverty in the 1900s, and many sassi that were have been modernized over the past few decades into restaurants and hotels. We visited the Madonna delle Virtu, a church carved into the rock that is not to miss, and currently it is hosting a Salvador Dali exhibit.