Italy's heel: 800 km of coast, forty million olive trees, and a run of towns unlike anywhere else in the country. Alberobello's trulli — conical drystone houses — are a UNESCO site; Lecce is baroque carved in soft golden stone; Ostuni is a white town on a hill above the olive groves; Matera is next door in Basilicata. The Gargano promontory in the north has the Foresta Umbra and the Tremiti Islands, and the Salento at the southern tip has the clearest water on the Italian mainland.
- Alberobello's trulli
- Lecce and the Salento baroque
- Ostuni, Locorotondo and the Itria Valley
- Polignano a Mare
- Gargano and the Tremiti Islands
- Castel del Monte
- Bari's old town
- Best time to go
- May–June and September–early October — the sea is warm and the towns are not full. July–August is very hot and very busy.
- Getting there
- Bari and Brindisi airports. Bari is 4h from Rome by train; a car is essential for the Itria Valley and the Salento coast.
© OpenFreeMap · OSM · terrain Mapterhorn · boundaries © EuroGeographics (Eurostat GISCO)
Headline places
What italia.it leads with in Puglia.
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Castel del Monte Frederick II's octagonal puzzle of a castle, alone on a Puglian hill -
Polignano a Mare A white town on a limestone cliff above a beach in a ravine -
Gargano & the Foresta Umbra An ancient beech forest on the spur of Italy, above sea stacks and coves -
Monte Sant'Angelo A cave sanctuary to the Archangel Michael, on the pilgrim road since 490 -
Otranto Italy's easternmost town, with a cathedral floor mosaic of the whole world -
Gallipoli A walled island old town on the Salento's Ionian side
Cities & bases
Where to sleep, and what each place is good for.
Islands
Puglia by experience
The themes this region delivers on.
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Art & culture More UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other country on earth -
Food & wine Regional to the point of parochial — and all the better for it -
Coast & islands 7,900 km of coastline and around eighty inhabited islands -
UNESCO Italy Sixty World Heritage sites — the largest tally of any country -
Borghi & villages The hill towns that carry I Borghi più belli d'Italia and the Orange Flag -
Nature & national parks 25 national parks, from alpine glaciers to volcanic islands -
Spirituality & pilgrimage Rome, Assisi, and the pilgrim roads that connect them
More of The South
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Abruzzo The wildest Apennines — bears, national parks and a trabocchi coast -
Molise The region Italians joke doesn't exist — mountains, tratturi and Samnite ruins -
Campania Naples, Pompeii, the Amalfi Coast and the islands of the bay -
Basilicata Matera's cave city, the Lucanian Dolomites and a sliver of Tyrrhenian coast -
Calabria Tropea's cliffs, three national parks and the Riace Bronzes