The Perfect Summer Roadtrip: Puglia and Basilicata

Southern Italy in summer isn’t for the faint-hearted. It’s undeniably hot, it can be slow but – unlike the big tourist cities to the north – it remains unapologetically itself.  The language you’ll hear over dinner is Italian…and that’s precisely the charm.

Basilicata and Puglia – the heel of Italy – is a perfect summer roadtrip for travellers who’d rather explore than tick boxes, and who will brush off any small incidents of chaos as though it’s dust on their shoes. Starting in Matera and ending in Alberobello, the route covers just enough ground to feel substantial without becoming a blur.

You’ll eat well, walk often, and return home asking indignantly ‘why did nobody tell me about this?’

Fly into Bari (closer) or Naples (often cheaper but boy, oh boy, is the traffic getting out of/into the airport a debacle and off you go.  You can do chunks of this trip by train (Lecce, Matera, Pogliano) but you’ll appreciate the freedom of your own vehicle.

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At A Glance

Hire A Car

I used Expedia to hire a car from Naples airport and drive across the ankle of Italy to Basilicata.  I’m still recovering from the stress of getting out of Naples.  Less convenient for inward flights but more pleasant driving conditions can be expected from Bari.  Both offer good range of national and international companies – I tend to opt for the latter.

Prices from £35/€40/$50 per day.

Where To Stay

• Matera: Locanda di San Martino – Obviously you’re going to want to stay in a sassi (cave).  This is a remarkable location with sweeping balcony views, spacious rooms and excellent breakfast (inc. gluten free options).  The free shuttle from town also saves the ankles.  Rooms from £100/€115/$130 pn.

• Lecce: Dimora Storica Muratore – How many 19^th century properties have an infinity pool?

  An absolute gem of a place in Lecce’s old town with tastefully restored (and soundproofed) rooms and the opportunity of a dip after a day’s sightseeing. Rooms from £140/€160/$190 pn.

• Pogliano A Mare: Don Gil Casa Vacanze – Two-bedroom apartments (sleeps four), ideal for families, less than 5 minutes’ walk to the beach.  Balcony provides optimum people watching potential. Rooms from £80/€95/$105 pn.

• Alberobello: Trullo Love – Adorable trullo in central Alberobello, up there with Matera for wow factor.  Small (obviously) but extremely comfortable with a basic kitchen set up and en-suite. Rooms from £90/€108/$130 pn.

What To Do

• Discover Matera: One of the best walking tours I’ve ever done, Gateano, a local historian, brings Matera’s twelve millennia of history to life.  Not just a dry reel of dates, he brings to life what living in a sassi really felt like.  Essential to understand the ground you’re walking on.

• Lecce Food Tour: Getting to the heart of Apulian cuisine with a healthy side dose of history and architecture along the way.  Plot spoiler, save some room for gelato, you know it’s coming!

• Alberobello, Locorotondo And Brunch:  If you don’t have a car, this is the ideal way to tick off two of the finest destinations in the region that are a pain in the backside to reach independently.  Apulian brunch thrown in if the sightseeing wasn’t enough.

Day 1: Matera

Driving Distance:  2hrs from Bari, 2.5hrs from Naples

Arriving in Matera feels like walking into a history book no one bothered to update.  Leave your car in the upper town (do not even think about driving down to the sassi, you’ll never get back).   Assuming you want to stay in a sassi (of course you do), try the Locanda di San Martino…they’ll pick you up.

The sassi — ancient cave dwellings carved into the limestone — have been lived in since the Paleolithic era (look it up, it’s old), which means Matera is technically older than just about everywhere…guidebooks typically pluck ‘third oldest continually-inhabited city on Earth’ out of the air.

Explore the Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso districts, where churches like San Pietro Caveoso rise from stone like something dreamt up by a medieval stonemason on a vision quest. The Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario, a restored cave home that reminds you humans have always been surprisingly adaptable, even before Wi-Fi.   Better yet, book onto Gaetano’s walking tour for a real insight of the millennia (and then some) of history that’s shaped Matera.  Even if you’re not a history geek like me, you’ll learn a ton.

End the day watching the sun drop behind the ravine from Belvedere Murgia Timone or pick any of the cocktail bars facing across the valley. 

Day 2: Lecce

Driving Distance: 2hrs

Before leaving Matera, drive up to the other side of the ravine for a full-frontal view of the cliffside dwellings and feel slightly smug that you did it all on foot yesterday.

Then onwards.

Occasionally dubbed “the Florence of the South” by lazy travel writers (not me obviously ;-), Lecce really belongs in a category of its own.  It combines many of the features that cause you to fall in love with Italy time and again but with a sense of wonder, as though you’ve been let in on a longstanding family secret.  Stay in the Old Town at Dimora Storica Muratore, in a 19^th century manor updated to include an infinity pool.

The old city is relaxed, sun-bleached, and dripping with Baroque architecture that looks like it was piped from a giant icing bag. Start any passiegata (go late afternoon or evening, shade is at a premium) at the Basilica di Santa Croce, which is ornate, even by Italian standards. The Roman amphitheatre in Piazza Sant’Oronzo reminds you of the passage of time and how many modern cities are built – quite literally on fallen Empires.

One of the joys of Lecce is that it’s small enough to wander without strategy. You’ll stumble upon papier-mâché workshops, sleepy piazzas, and shady gardens that seem immune to time. Treat yourself to a caffè leccese - espresso over ice with almond milk syrup -  and a pasticciato (the local custard pastry, similar to a Portugese tarta di nata) before dinner, preferably somewhere unpretentious where the pasta is handmade and the waiter says “no menu.” Before describing in flowing Italian a series of dishes you’ll remember a lifetime.

This itinerary assumes you make Lecce your base for the next three nights so you can spread all of this across multiple evenings.

Day 3: Otranto & Gallipoli

Driving Time: 2-2.5hrs

An ambitious day exploring the best of Puglia.  It ideally warrants an early start to help with pacing but it remains perfectly doable if you gave into temptation and ordered the second bottle of red last night

Start in Otranto (35 minutes from Lecce), where the Aragonese Castle looms over a postcard-perfect harbour. The Cathedral is the real draw, with a 12th-century mosaic floor that includes Alexander the Great, a mermaid, and a man being swallowed by a whale – not Jonah apparently. 

The altar also reveals a grisly surprise – the c. 800 skulls of 14^th century townsfolk massacred during a Turkish invasion.  Visit before your morning pastry.

Feel free to linger in the old quarter around the cathedral, it’s a beguiling place before heading west to Gallipoli (45 minutes drive from Otranto), the “beautiful city” on an island tethered to the mainland – park on the causeway and walk in.

Its Greek name (Kallipolis) isn’t exaggerating. Walk the fortified walls, poke into the baroque Cattedrale di Sant’Agata, and eat something fried by the sea – literally there are no bad options here and looking out into the blue-green ocean is a highlight of any Puglia trip.

Day 4: Polignano a Mare

Driving Time: 45 minutes each way

Polignano a Mare balances on limestone cliffs like it’s daring gravity to make the first move.   Puglia’s definitive seaside town, the beach can be unadulterated chaos in summer but the boardwalk and the rest of town is delightful – and several degrees cooler than the interior

The town’s most iconic view is from Lama Monachile, a narrow pebble beach hemmed in by soaring walls and often featured in Red Bull cliff diving events.  Wait long enough and you’ll see it – spectating is exhilarating; attempting somewhat more ill-advised.

Stroll through the centro storico and read the snippets of poetry chalked onto doorways and staircases - part of a local tradition that’s more charming than twee. Visit the statue of Domenico Modugno, whose arms are permanently thrown open in the sea breeze (he sang “Volare” – you know it, trust me).

Polignano’s gelato is worth mentioning, especially at Il Super Mago del Gelo. Order the caffè speciale - a local concoction involving espresso, cream, sugar, and lemon peel — and sip it slowly with a view of people jumping off rocks.  What more could you ask for?

Make your way back to Lecce for early evening and treat yourself to a food tour, which balances a crash course in history (with far more laughs than you’d expect) with four food stops to sample sweet and savoury specialities of the region. 

You’ll probably get onto your second gelato of the day by the end but frankly, who’s counting.

Day 5: Alberobello

Driving Time: 1hr each way

Yes, it’s touristy.

Yes, people call it “fairy-tale” – probably the same ones who call Lecce ‘Florence of the South’ (eye roll).

But Alberobello is genuinely odd in a way that’s hard not to respect. 

You’ll probably have seen pictures of the trulli - conical dry-stone huts - without necessarily knowing where to find them.  Until now. 

They’re stacked like beehives across the Rione Monti district (big parking lot located conveniently next door in an olive grove). Many are shops now, but some are still homes, and there’s something pleasingly handmade about the whole place. Visit the Trullo Sovrano, a two-storey version that feels absurdly luxurious by trullo standards. Then wander the quieter Aia Piccola district, where the crowds thin and the lived-in feel returns. The town is a UNESCO site, of course, but don’t come expecting grandeur - the appeal is in the irregularity, the chalky stone, the way the buildings seem to shrug off straight lines.

This is another destination where the time-honoured guidance of come early (before 10am) or arrive late (after 4pm) applies, probably more so than anywhere else in this itinerary.  Tour groups quickly overwhelm the trulli district and the charm disappears more quickly than that pistachio gelato you’ve been eyeing up since breakfast.

88 Gradi (Via Piave 12) is a good place to grab coffee, a pastry or an apertivo depending on the time of day.  If the impossibly romantic sight of the trulli makes you want to stay in one, Trullo Love is an excellent option – central, clean and comfortable.

On your way there or back, stop by Locorotondo, a pristine hilltop town – designated one of Italy’s most beautiful but refreshingly light on tourists. where everything is whitewashed and floral. The centro storico spirals inward like a seashell and rewards wandering without purpose. No major sights, which is kind of the point. Just stillness, and views across the Valle d’Itria and wine servings (multiple shops advertise) that make you consider staying forever.

These are the two locations hardest to reach from Lecce by train so if you’re car-less, I recommend taking a tour which includes both of these, plus an Apulian brunch and olive oil tasting.

Trulli Delightful (sorry!) Why Puglia and Basilicata is the perfect summer roadtrip

To me, Puglia and Basilicata were the perfect summer roadtrip and full of revelations.  Full of everything I adore about Italy (food, views, architecture – groundbreaking I know) but with the feeling of stumbling into a private street party, rather than the tourist hot spots of Tuscany, Venice or Rome.  Compared to the rest of Italy, driving was a cinch, parking readily available and the distances extremely manageable.

Matera and Lecce belong on Italy’s ‘must do’ list in their own right but what’s delightful about Puglian coastal towns are the local quirks of each, making them infinitely more attractive and interesting.

To misquote Bill Bryson “What, you’ve never been to Puglia?  Go at once. Take my car.  It’s wonderful.”