Puglia and Basilicata · Italy
Whitewashed hill towns, conical stone huts, Baroque Lecce and a cave city that Italy was ashamed of and is now proud of.
Photo: Jules Verne Times Two · CC BY-SA 4.0
Matera is not in Puglia — it is just over the border in Basilicata — but nobody plans one without the other, and the two belong in the same trip. It is a town built into and out of a limestone ravine, where houses were quarried into the rock and the stone taken out was used to build the fronts, so the same material is both wall and hollow. People lived there continuously for thousands of years. By the 1940s they were living there with their animals in extreme poverty, and after Carlo Levi's book made it a national scandal the government evacuated some fifteen thousand of them into new housing in the 1950s. The Sassi stood empty for thirty years, became a UNESCO site in 1993, and were named a European Capital of Culture in 2019.
Puglia proper is the heel: eight hundred kilometres of coast, a limestone plateau in the middle, and olive groves that have been worked since before the Romans, some of the trees a thousand years old. It has three distinct pieces. In the middle, the Valle d'Itria is full of trulli — round dry-stone huts with conical roofs, built without mortar so they could be dismantled when the tax inspector came — and whitewashed hill towns above them. Further south, Lecce is a small Baroque city carved out of a limestone so soft it can be worked like wood. And the Salento peninsula at the tip has rocky Adriatic cliffs on one side and Ionian sand on the other.
It is also the best value in Italy. Masserie — fortified farmhouses — have been converted into hotels at prices that would buy a room above a Tuscan car park. The food is regional and largely vegetable-based, the wine is Primitivo and Negroamaro, and outside August the coast is not crowded. This is where a second or third Italian trip should go.
Why visit
Three UNESCO sites, two coastlines and one of the most distinctive food cultures in Italy — for noticeably less money than anywhere north of Naples.
A whole settlement carved into a ravine, with around 150 rock-cut churches, some frescoed. Sleeping in a converted cave here is one of the few unusual hotel experiences left in Italy.
Alberobello has around 1,500 of them and is UNESCO-listed, but the whole Valle d'Itria is scattered with trulli standing in olive groves and vineyards, still used and still being repaired.
The local limestone is soft enough to carve like wood, so the facades erupt with fruit, animals and figures. It is a small, warm, liveable city with a Roman amphitheatre in the main square.
In the Salento you can swim off Adriatic rock in the morning and Ionian sand in the afternoon. Neither is developed the way the Amalfi Coast is, and both are far cheaper.
Orecchiette with turnip tops, broad bean purée with wild chicory, burrata from Andria, bombette grilled at the butcher's counter, and pasticciotto for breakfast in Lecce.
Main attractions
This is a long region — Matera to the tip of the Salento is three hours — so plan it as a linear drive rather than a hub and spokes.
Two districts of cave dwellings, Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano, stacked either side of a ravine, with rock-cut churches carrying Byzantine frescoes and a reconstructed cave house showing how families and animals shared one room.
Tip Walk the Murgia park path on the far side of the ravine for the view back. The Casa Grotta museum takes ten minutes and reframes everything.
Around 1,500 trulli in two districts — busy Rione Monti and quieter Aia Piccola — with conical dry-stone roofs, whitewashed walls and painted symbols on some of the pinnacles.
Tip Overwhelming by day and lovely at eight in the morning or after seven at night. Aia Piccola is where people still live.
The plateau between Alberobello and Ostuni: Locorotondo, a circular white town on a hill; Cisternino, where butchers grill your meat while you wait; and Martina Franca, unexpectedly grand and Baroque.
Tip This is the best area to base in. The three towns are fifteen minutes apart and each is worth an evening.
The Baroque capital of the south, built in a golden limestone soft enough to carve in extraordinary detail — Santa Croce's facade above all — with a Roman amphitheatre sunk into the main square.
Tip Walk it after dark when the stone is floodlit. Two nights is right; it is a city to sit in rather than tick off.
The città bianca: a hill town lime-washed brilliant white, visible for miles across the olive plain that runs down to the Adriatic, with a rose-window cathedral at the top of a maze of lanes.
Tip Park below and walk up. The best views of Ostuni are from the approach road, not from inside it.
Two Adriatic towns half an hour from Bari: Polignano built on a cliff over the Lama Monachile cove, and Monopoli with a working harbour, a whitewashed old town and far fewer visitors.
Tip Polignano is best early or late. Monopoli is the better dinner and the better swim.
The easternmost town in Italy, with an Aragonese castle and a cathedral whose entire floor is a twelfth-century mosaic of the Tree of Life. South of it, cliffs run to Santa Maria di Leuca at the tip.
Tip The mosaic is extraordinary and largely overlooked. The coast road south towards Castro is one of Italy's best drives.
Frederick II's octagonal castle of the 1240s, with eight octagonal towers, no obvious military purpose and a geometry that has kept historians arguing for centuries. It appears on the Italian one-cent coin.
Tip Inland from Trani, and reached by a shuttle from the car park. Combine with Trani's Romanesque cathedral on the sea.
Things to do
Puglia rewards slowness: two or three bases, short drives, long lunches and a swim in the afternoon.
Matera's Sassi hotels are converted rock dwellings with vaulted stone ceilings. In the Valle d'Itria, fortified farmhouses have become hotels with olive groves, pools and their own oil.
Tip Both are far cheaper than the equivalent in Tuscany. Book the cave rooms with natural light unless you like total darkness.
In Bari Vecchia, women make orecchiette at tables in the street on the Arco Basso, dragging each piece off the board with a knife and thumb. It is a working street, not a display.
Tip Mornings. Buy a bag of fresh pasta, and be respectful about photographs — people live there.
In Cisternino and Martina Franca, butchers double as grill houses: you choose your meat at the counter, they cook it over coals, and you eat it upstairs with bread and wine.
Tip Ask for bombette — rolled pork parcels stuffed with cheese. Evenings only, and there will be a queue.
The Adriatic side of the Salento is limestone cliffs, sea caves and rock platforms; the Ionian side is long shallow sand. They are twenty to thirty minutes apart across the peninsula.
Tip Grotta della Poesia near Roca for the sinkhole, Pescoluse near the tip for the sand. Both get busy in August only.
Around Matera and in the Murgia gorge opposite, more than a hundred churches were cut into the limestone between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, some still carrying Byzantine frescoes.
Tip The park across the ravine needs proper shoes and, in summer, an early start. A guide is worth it for the frescoed ones.
Manduria and the Salento make dense, warm Primitivo and the lighter Negroamaro, at prices that make northern Italian wine look like a mistake. Many estates take visitors.
Tip Ask for Verdeca or a Salento rosato in summer — the whites and rosés here are underrated and better suited to the heat.
Local food
Puglian cooking is cucina povera at its best: wheat, vegetables, olive oil, and very good bread — with meat and fish as punctuation rather than the point.
Little ear-shaped pasta made by hand, with turnip tops, garlic, chilli, anchovy and toasted breadcrumbs. The regional dish, bitter and savoury, and best where the pasta was made that morning.
Where to try it Bari and the Valle d'Itria. In Bari Vecchia the pasta is made on tables in the street.
Burrata was invented at Andria, north of Bari: a mozzarella shell filled with cream and torn curd, eaten within a day of being made. Alongside it, stracciatella and fresh sheep's ricotta.
Where to try it Any caseificio in the morning, ideally in Andria itself. Eat it the same day — it does not keep.
A thick, oily focaccia dimpled with cherry tomatoes and olives, sold by weight all day; and panzerotti, half-moons of dough filled with tomato and mozzarella and deep-fried.
Where to try it Bakeries in Bari and Altamura, whose bread has protected status and keeps for a week.
Bombette are rolled pork parcels stuffed with cheese and grilled at the butcher's; fave e cicoria is a purée of dried broad beans with wild chicory and olive oil — poor food that has become the regional signature.
Where to try it Cisternino and Martina Franca for the bombette; any trattoria for the fave.
A small shortcrust pastry filled with custard, eaten warm for breakfast in the Salento; and caffè leccese, espresso poured over ice with almond milk, which is the local answer to a hot morning.
Where to try it Lecce's bars from seven in the morning. The pasticciotto should still be warm from the oven.
Puglia's two great reds: dense, ripe Primitivo from around Manduria and the more savoury Negroamaro of the Salento, plus rosato that has been made here far longer than it has been fashionable.
Where to try it Estate cellars around Manduria and Salice Salentino, and by the carafe in any trattoria for a few euros.
Accommodation
Puglia's converted masserie and Matera's cave hotels are the reason to come at this budget — both cost a fraction of the northern equivalent.
Transport
Two airports at either end of the region, and a high-speed line down the Adriatic that stops well short of the Salento.
A car, without much argument. Puglia's attractions are small towns spread across a large agricultural region, and the trains connect very few of them.
When to go
This is the hottest, driest part of mainland Italy and its beach season is short and intense. Either side of it, the region is warm, empty and cheap.
Wildflowers across the Murgia, green olive groves, 18–28°C and the sea swimmable from late May. Everything is open by Easter and the coast is not yet busy.
Frequently 35°C and above, with almost no shade in Matera or Alberobello. August is the Italian holiday month and the Salento coast fills entirely, with prices to match.
The pick of the year. The sea stays warm into October, the olive harvest begins, the crowds vanish after the first week of September and the light on the white towns is at its best.
Mild at 12–16°C with some rain, and very cheap. Matera and Lecce are excellent in winter; the coastal resorts of the Salento largely close.
Worth planning around: August, unless the beach is the entire trip. The Salento coast is at Italian-holiday capacity, accommodation doubles in price, and Matera and Alberobello are exposed stone towns in 35-degree heat.
Itinerary
A linear drive from Bari to the Salento, with three bases: Matera, the Valle d'Itria and Lecce. Fly out of Brindisi to avoid backtracking.
Arrive, then straight into the ravine.
The cave city, inside and out.
West into Puglia's stone country.
White towns and clear water.
Baroque in golden stone.
Two coasts in one day.
One last inland detour, or nothing at all.
Travel tips
Puglia is easy driving and hard sun. Most of what goes wrong here is heat, August, or a ZTL.
FAQ
No — Matera is in Basilicata, the region immediately west, though it sits only about an hour from Bari and is almost always visited as part of a Puglian trip. The distinction matters mainly for transport: Matera is served by a separate regional railway and is easiest reached by coach from Bari or Bari airport, or by car.
Five at a minimum, seven comfortably. Two nights in Matera, two or three in the Valle d'Itria for the trulli towns and the Adriatic coast, and two in Lecce for the Baroque and the Salento. The region runs about 250 km from Bari to the tip, so a linear route with three bases works far better than day trips from one hotel.
Yes, for almost everything. The main Adriatic railway links Bari, Polignano, Monopoli, Brindisi and Lecce well, and a regional narrow-gauge line reaches Alberobello, but the masserie, the Valle d'Itria towns, Castel del Monte and the Salento coast are all effectively car-only. Driving here is easy — the roads are flat, wide and quiet by Italian standards.
Round dry-stone huts with conical corbelled roofs, built without mortar so that they could be dismantled quickly — traditionally to avoid a property tax on permanent buildings. Alberobello has around 1,500 of them and is UNESCO-listed, but they are scattered across the whole Valle d'Itria in olive groves and vineyards, and many have been converted into houses and holiday rentals.
By the 1940s the cave districts housed some fifteen thousand people in severe poverty, often sharing a single room with their livestock. Carlo Levi's book brought national attention, the conditions were denounced in parliament as a national shame, and the government evacuated the Sassi into new housing during the 1950s. They stood empty for decades, were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993, and have been gradually reoccupied as homes, restaurants and hotels since.
May to June and September to October. Spring brings wildflowers across the Murgia and a sea swimmable from late May; September and October give warm water, the olive harvest and empty towns. July and August regularly exceed 35°C with no shade in Matera or Alberobello, and August in particular fills the Salento coast with Italian holidaymakers at double the price.
Very. The Salento has two quite different coasts twenty to thirty minutes apart: the Adriatic side is limestone cliffs, sea caves and rock platforms with exceptionally clear water, and the Ionian side around Gallipoli and Pescoluse is long, shallow and sandy. Further north, Polignano a Mare's cove and the Gargano peninsula's beaches are both excellent. Outside August, none of it is crowded.
Keep exploring
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