First Stop: Puglia, Italy

The Big Trip is underway, although in some ways we feel like it does not officially begin until we head to Singapore on October 9. So far, a week in Italy feels like any other trip. Nonetheless, we have now been “homeless” for 8 nights out of 153. After a week eating our way through the heel of the Italian boot with Jeff’s parents, we are almost ready for Asian food, but we still have the opportunity for more pasta and gelato in Rome.

Puglia has a rustic landscape lined with olive trees and rocky coastal zones. It is filled with small towns and areas of archaeological interest. Each town is unique and at the same time very similar – there’s an old walled city and a lot of churches, of course. It’s the perfect place to just go from town to town enjoying the scenery and food. No need for museums or anything that works your brain too hard.

We spent 3 nights at a lovely “agriturismo” with an old olive mill near Monopoli on the east coast. Monopoli’s old town has picturesque narrow lanes:

We spent a morning at the Grotte di Castellana touring a network of caves that extend over 3 kilometers and sit on average 300 feet underground. The first cave is open and, unfortunately, the only place where photos are permitted, but the entire tour was pretty spectacular.

The absolute star of Puglia is Alberobello, a town with the largest conglomeration of trulli, small stone structures that look like gnome homes. They are darling, but mostly filled with shops selling cheesy trinkets.

The skippable town was Taranto, on the west side, which has a well-maintained fort, typical of coastal towns, but not much more. 

Since you can cross from one side of the heel to the other in about an hour’s drive, on the same day we were able to visit the fantastic Polignano a Mare, on the east side, with a tiny beach and lovely viewpoints. We also had gelato for dinner there after a lovely (and large) lunch in Martina Franco, which merits a visit.

Ostuni is a white hill town with views across the central plains of Puglia.

Gallipoli’s old town sits on a small peninsula that can get quite windy. It’s where we tried our first pasticciotto, a Pugliese specialty (a custard filled shortbread type pastry that is delicious).

Santa Maria di Leuca at the southern tip of the boot offered beautiful views and a fabulous fish lunch. It wasn’t quite warm enough to swim “simultaneously” in the Adriatic and Ionian seas.

We stayed in a very nice VRBO in Lecce that served as the perfect base to explore the southern towns. Lecce is chock full of amazing baroque architecture and has a Roman amphitheater in its historic center:

Our last fun stop was a winery (of course): Consorzio Produttori Vini di Manduria. The winery is a cooperative for Primitivo grape growers (400 of them!) that produces wines at all levels. The museum had a lot of artifacts featuring 80 years of regional history. We tasted some of their better wines, but most interesting was the way they sold table wine in bulk to the locals – directly from steel tanks using “gas station” equipment. We’ve never seen anything like it:

We use the term charming a lot in this blog, and it is quite apropos for Puglia, which reminded us of Sicily. We may have liked Sicily more, but there is also a lot to recommend in Puglia.

Arrivederci,

Shana & Jeff

PS – Having written this on the train from Brindisi to Rome, I feel compelled to tell you that French trains are better than Italian and Spanish trains.