Puglia is where Italians go on holiday. Whitewashed towns, €8 seafood feasts, Primitivo at €3/glass, and beaches that rival Greece at a fraction of the cost.
Build this itinerary →Bari Vecchia: grandmothers making orecchiette on tables in the street. Buy a bag for €5. Basilica di San Nicola (yes, Santa Claus — his actual bones are in the crypt). Raw sea urchin at the fish market €3/plate. Day 2: Polignano a Mare (30 min south) — clifftop town above turquoise coves. Grotta Palazzese restaurant inside a cave (€100+), but the public beach below is free.
Alberobello (1h from Bari): 1,500 conical trulli, UNESCO since 1996. Trullo Sovrano (€3). Ostuni (30 min): the White City — every building whitewashed, perched on three hills. Lecce (1h): the "Florence of the South" — Barocco Leccese so ornate it has its own name. Piazza del Duomo. Rustico leccese €1.50.
From Bari: FAL train or Flixbus, 1h15, €5–8. Matera's sassi were home to 15,000 people in squalid conditions until Carlo Levi exposed it. By 1993: UNESCO. Now: luxury destination, European Capital of Culture 2019. Stay in a sassi B&B (€70–100). Rupestrian churches with 8th–13th century frescoes. Casa Noha (€5). Belvedere sunset turns the stone gold.
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