Puglia and Matera: Seven Days by the Sea

One day is not enough for Puglia and three is too few, so the real decision is how to spend a week: beaches, baroque towns or cave cities. The route below takes all three, splitting the nights between Monopoli on the Adriatic and Otranto in the Salento, and it runs on the logistics that actually matter, from the airport you land at to the ferry you can catch home.

Getting there

Plan to arrive and depart through Bari, by airport or train station. Cheap, frequent flights link Bari with cities across the country, direct trains run from Rome, and an overnight ferry connects the port with Dubrovnik, which makes a Croatia extension easy. Your guide meets you on arrival and ground transport for the week is by private vehicle.

1. Arrive in Bari and transfer to your base in the historic centre of Monopoli
2. Spend three nights in Monopoli, then three nights in Otranto
3. Depart from Bari on day seven, with a stop in Ostuni on the way

When to go

May, June and September give the best balance of swimmable sea and workable sightseeing, since July and August fill the beaches and heat the stone towns. Spring suits the cycling route among the ancient olive groves, while autumn keeps the wineries around Manduria at their most generous. Water-based extras, such as the sailing trip from Polignano a Mare, run subject to weather in any season.

What to see: trulli, caves and a city in the rock

The two UNESCO sites anchor the week. In Alberobello, hundreds of dry-stone trulli with their conical roofs crowd the hilltop streets, a building tradition older than any written record here. Inland, the caves of Castellana rank among the finest caverns open to visitors, a good swap for a winery visit if the group prefers. Then there is Matera, reached on day three with a stop in Altamura for focaccia straight from a medieval oven. Tradition says travellers named the place for the star-scattered cave settlements that looked like a shower of meteorites as they approached. It is counted among the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world, after Jericho and Aleppo, its ravine walls are pierced with frescoed rock churches, and after serving as a capital of culture in 2019 it hosts countless artistic events. Time seems suspended there, and the welcoming kitchens make the trip worth the detour.

Cheese, wine and where to eat

Puglia eats well at every price, but three meals deserve planning. First, the cheese workshop at an organic farm, where you learn to pull mozzarella and burrata by hand; the milk here comes from cows treated to massages and spa-like care, and you can taste the difference. Second, the farm and winery day around the cherry heartland of the Ferrovia variety, with sparkling, rose, white and red pours after a home-style lunch. Third, the seafood: Monopoli's seafront bars pour aperitivi before dinner, an outstanding sushi kitchen with two Japanese chefs sits a short walk from the old town, and in Otranto the family tables of a lively osteria serve the catch from the Salento coast.

• Burrata and stracciatella workshop at an organic cheese farm near Monopoli
• Primitivo and rose tasting with a sommelier at the producers consortium in Manduria
• Lunch at a winery run by the same ducal family, of Norman origin, for some twelve hundred years
• Cooking class with a local couple in a mansion in the centre of Lecce

Beaches and the Salento coast

Build the afternoons around the water. The white sand beaches south of Manduria sit inside a protected natural area. In the Salento, locals call the shoreline the Italian Maldives, and the swimming spots worth naming are Baia dei Turchi, Torre dell'Orso and, for confident swimmers, the sunken grotto of Grotta della Poesia. An optional excursion can run south to Santa Maria di Leuca at the very tip of the peninsula for lunch. Monopoli adds its own city beaches and the small Atlantis of Capitolo nearby, plus a boat trip to the marine caves under Polignano a Mare, a village perched on a rocky outcrop just up the coast.

Getting around and the last day

Distances are short and the private vehicle handles them all, so the only decisions are daily. Optional extras that need agreeing with the group include the cycling tour among the ancient olive trees and fortified farmhouses around Monopoli, the sailing from Polignano and the Castellana caves. On day six, Lecce fills a morning: an expert guide walks you through the baroque jewel, a hands-on class follows in a mansion in the centre, and an old traditional mill in the countryside explains how local grain was once ground. Day seven saves the best stop for last, the whitewashed lanes and staircases of Ostuni, the white city, before the driver delivers you to Bari in time for your flight or the evening ferry.

Book the Matera day and the cheese workshop first, since both fill fastest, then let the beach afternoons fall where the weather sends them.