Explore Puglia

Martina Franca

Our wedding town

Our wedding town — a baroque gem of whitewashed lanes, ornate palazzi and lively piazzas. Perfect for an evening passeggiata and gelato.

Known for

• A baroque old town that has stayed lived-in, not museumified
• Festival della Valle d'Itria — summer opera and bel canto since 1975
• Capocollo and bombette — the local meat specialities the Valle d'Itria is famous for

Photo: Stefano Zocca · Unsplash License · Cropped

Alberobello

≈ 20 min drive

The famous trulli town, 20 minutes away. Cone-roofed stone houses you won't see anywhere else on earth.

Known for

• UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996
• Over 1,500 trulli — dry-stone huts with cone roofs found nowhere else
• Rione Monti: a whole hillside of trulli, shops and roof terraces

Photo: reisetopia · Unsplash License · Cropped

Ostuni

≈ 25 min drive

The 'White City' perched on a hilltop, glowing at sunset. Wander the old town, then dinner with views over the olive plains to the sea.

Known for

• Nicknamed the White City for its lime-washed old town
• A medieval warren of stairways and arches on three hilltops
• Heart of Puglia's olive oil country — try it on almost everything

Photo: Henrique Ferreira · Unsplash License · Cropped

Monopoli

≈ 30 min drive

A real Pugliese seaside town: fishing harbour, whitewashed old town and a coast of rocky coves. Less crowded than nearby Polignano and Ostuni.

Known for

• The pentagonal Castello Carlo V (1552) guarding the old harbour
• A string of coves and beaches south to Capitolo — Porto Rosso, Porto Bianco, Cala Porta Vecchia
• Seafood, gelato and a harbour front that fills up every summer evening

Photo: Ola K. · Unsplash License · Cropped

Polignano a Mare

≈ 35 min drive

The whitewashed town on the cliffs, with the bridge-framed cove you've seen in a thousand photos. Come early or stay till evening to beat the crowds.

Known for

• Lama Monachile — the postcard cove beneath the old town bridge
• Birthplace of Domenico Modugno, who wrote and sang 'Volare'
• A summer stage of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series — divers plunge 27 m

Photo: Renzo Vanden Bussche · Unsplash License · Cropped

Matera

≈ 1 hr 15 drive · just over the border in Basilicata

Puglia's most famous neighbour, and rightly so: a labyrinth of homes and churches carved into the rock, walked at dawn or watched from above at sunset.

Known for

• The Sassi — cave districts carved into the rock, UNESCO World Heritage since 1993
• European Capital of Culture 2019
• James Bond's No Time to Die (2021) opens here; Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and Pasolini's Gospel According to St Matthew were filmed in the Sassi
• Among the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on earth

Photo: Jerry Kavan · Unsplash License · Cropped

Lecce

≈ 1 hr drive

The 'Florence of the South' — extravagant baroque architecture in warm golden stone, about an hour south. Worth a day trip.

Known for

• Baroque taken to its most extravagant — facades carved like lace in soft pietra leccese
• A 2nd-century Roman amphitheatre beneath Piazza Sant'Oronzo
• The pasticciotto — a warm custard tart you must eat at least once

Photo supplied by Molly & Joshua · Photo supplied by the couple · Cropped

The Beaches

Both the Adriatic and Ionian coasts are within reach. Try the coves around Polignano or the long sandy stretches near Torre Canne.

Known for

• Two coastlines within an hour — Adriatic to the east, Ionian to the west
• Long sandy beaches at Torre Canne, rocky coves and sea caves further south
• Boat trips into the sea caves — and to the Tremiti Islands from the Gargano

Photo: Massimo Virgilio · Unsplash License · Cropped

Food & Wine

Puglia is Italy's breadbasket: orecchiette, burrata, focaccia barese, Primitivo wine and olive oil from trees older than most countries.

Known for

• Orecchiette con cime di rapa, handmade on the street in old Bari
• Burrata, invented in nearby Andria in the 1920s — best eaten the day it's made
• Primitivo and Negroamaro reds from vines that love the heat

Photo: Jetts Thanatip · Unsplash License · Cropped