No Rome. No Florence. No Venice. Not because they aren't magnificent — they are — but because you want the Italy where you're the only foreigner in the restaurant. Where the waiter doesn't speak English and that's the point. Where the church has frescoes that would be behind rope in a museum but here you can touch the wall. This is that trip.
Get a personalized version →Matera (2) → Maratea (1) → Tropea (2) → Ortigia/Siracusa (2) → Ragusa + Modica (2) → Cefalù (1). No Rome. No Florence. No Venice. Not because they aren't magnificent — but because you want the Italy where you're the only foreigner in the restaurant and the waiter's English vocabulary is "water" and "wine." This route traces the southern coast from Puglia through Calabria into Sicily, hitting towns that most tourists drive past at 130 km/h on the autostrada.
You need a car for this trip. The south's train network covers the coast but many of these towns are inland, hilltop, or poorly connected. Rent in Bari, drop off in Palermo. €30-50/day from Firefly, Sicily by Car, or DiscoverCars. Get the smallest car possible — southern streets are narrow.
Fly into Bari airport. Pick up rental car, drive to Matera (1 hour south). Matera is a UNESCO World Heritage site that was Italy's shame — cave dwellings evacuated in the 1950s as "national disgrace." Now it's Italy's comeback story: the caves are boutique hotels, restaurants, and galleries. It was Jerusalem in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. It's unlike anywhere else in Europe.
Stay IN a cave. Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita (from €200/night, stunning) or L'Hotel in Pietra (from €90/night, good value). Sleeping in a 9,000-year-old cave with modern plumbing is an experience you won't forget.
Day 1: Walk the Sassi di Matera — both the Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso. No map needed, just wander. Every corner is a different century. Visit Casa Grotta (€5) — a furnished cave dwelling showing how families lived until the 1950s. Lunch at Trattoria Lucana (Via Lucana 48) — orecchiette with cime di rapa, bread from local wheat. ~€18/person.
Day 2: Morning hike in the Murgia Materana park opposite the Sassi — rock churches with frescoes from the 8th-13th century carved into cliff faces. Cross the gorge on the pedestrian bridge for the iconic view of Matera from across the canyon (this is the view from every postcard). Afternoon: Musma sculpture museum (€7, inside cave rooms). Dinner: Baccanti (Via Sant'Angelo 58) — creative southern cooking in a candlelit cave, ~€35/person.
Drive 2.5 hours south from Matera through Basilicata's mountains to Maratea. This is what the Amalfi Coast looked like before tourism. Dramatic cliffs, emerald water, no crowds, no €25 sunbeds. The town is perched on a hillside above a tiny harbor, with a 22-meter Christ statue on the peak (larger than Rio's, almost nobody knows it exists).
Stay at Hotel Villa Cheta (from €100/night, Art Nouveau villa, sea views) or any of the small B&Bs in the borgo. Lunch at Taverna Rovita (Via Rovita 13) — seafood caught that morning, ~€25/person. Afternoon: drive to one of Maratea's hidden beaches — Spiaggia di Macarro or Spiaggia Nera (black sand). Evening: walk to the Cristo Redentore at sunset — the view over the Tyrrhenian coast is staggering.
Drive 2 hours south along the Calabrian coast to Tropea. Built on a cliff above a white sand beach with turquoise water that looks Caribbean. The town is famous for two things: its beauty and its red onions (cipolla rossa di Tropea — sweet enough to eat raw, used in everything).
Stay in the old town. Palazzo Ferraioli (from €80/night, sea view terrace) or B&B Cinque Balconi (from €60/night). Walk down the cliff steps to Spiaggia della Rotonda — the main beach, with the Santa Maria dell'Isola church on a rock island connected by a staircase. The water is warmer than the Amalfi Coast and the sand is actually sand, not pebbles.
Day 4: Beach morning. Lunch at Osteria del Pescatore (Largo Duomo) — fresh swordfish, pasta with 'nduja (spicy spreadable sausage, Calabria's gift to the world), ~€20/person. Afternoon: wander Tropea's old town — the palazzo facades, the Duomo, the views from every terrace.
Day 5: Drive 15 minutes to Capo Vaticano — Calabria's most spectacular coastline. Grotticelle beach is jaw-dropping. Pack a picnic (bread, local cheese, tomatoes, cipolla rossa) and spend the morning. Afternoon: drive to Pizzo (30 min north) for tartufo di Pizzo — ice cream ball filled with molten chocolate, invented here (€3). Then head south toward the ferry at Villa San Giovanni.
Ferry from Villa San Giovanni to Messina (20 min, €40-50 with car). Drive 2.5 hours south to Siracusa. This was once the most powerful city in the Greek world — larger than Athens in the 5th century BC. The ancient theater is still used for summer performances. The island of Ortigia, connected by a short bridge, is Sicily's most beautiful old town.
Stay in Ortigia. Algila Ortigia Charme Hotel (from €130/night, palazzo) or B&B L'Approdo delle Sirene (from €70/night, sea views). Ortigia is walkable, car-free in the center, and every street ends at the sea.
Day 6: Morning: Parco Archeologico della Neapolis (€13.50) — Greek theater (5th century BC, 15,000 seats), the Ear of Dionysius (acoustic cave), Roman amphitheater. Afternoon: cross to Ortigia. Piazza Duomo — the cathedral was built on (and inside) a Greek temple. The columns are still visible. Walk to Fonte Aretusa (freshwater spring on the harbor) and Castello Maniace (€4, sea fortress). Lunch at Caseificio Ferraro (Via Saverio Cavallari 14) — ricotta so fresh it's still warm, €3-5.
Day 7: Morning market at Mercato di Ortigia — fish, fruits, spices, street food. Arancini (€2-3), raw sea urchin at the market stalls if you dare (€3). Lunch at Trattoria Archimede (Via Gemmellaro 8) — since 1938, seafood pasta, ~€25/person. Afternoon: swim at Spiaggia di Fontane Bianche (15 min south, white sand, clear water). Evening: dinner on the Ortigia seafront — Don Camillo (Via Maestranza 96, Michelin-recommended, ~€45/person) for the splurge, or Osteria da Mariano (Vicolo Zuccalà 9) for home cooking at €15-20.
Drive 1.5 hours west from Siracusa to Ragusa Ibla — the lower, older part of Ragusa, rebuilt entirely in Baroque style after the 1693 earthquake. It's a UNESCO site and the setting for the Inspector Montalbano TV series. Golden limestone, curving staircases, 50 churches in a town of 5,000 people.
Stay in Ragusa Ibla. Locanda Don Serafino (from €140/night, restaurant with Michelin star below) or B&B Il Giardino di Ibla (from €60/night, terrace garden).
Day 8: Walk Ragusa Ibla. Giardino Ibleo (public garden with church views), Duomo di San Giorgio (the most beautiful Baroque facade in Sicily). Lunch at Duomo restaurant (Ciccio Ferreri, the other Ragusa restaurant with a star, €40-50/person) or Gelati DiVini for wine-flavored gelato (Nero d'Avola flavor, €3). Afternoon: drive 20 minutes to Modica — home of Sicilian chocolate. Visit Antica Dolceria Bonajuto (since 1880) — they make chocolate using the pre-industrial Aztec method: cold-ground, grainy, with flavors like chili, vanilla, citrus. Tasting is free, bars cost €4-6. Buy several.
Day 9: Morning drive to Scicli (20 min from Ragusa) — another Baroque gem, less visited. The town hall (Palazzo Municipale) was Montalbano's police station. Lunch in Scicli at Satra (Via Francesco Mormina Penna 19) — creative Sicilian, ~€25/person. Afternoon: drive to Cefalù (3 hours north, take the motorway).
Cefalù is a fishing town backed by a massive rock (La Rocca) with a Norman cathedral that has golden Byzantine mosaics rivaling anything in Ravenna. The town has a sandy beach (rare in rocky Sicily), a charming old town, and the perfect combination of culture and relaxation for your last day.
Morning: Climb La Rocca (€4, 30 minutes up) — ruins of a 4th-century BC temple and a Norman castle at the top. Panoramic view of the coast and the town below. Then the Duomo (free) — the Christ Pantocrator mosaic in the apse is one of the finest in the world, pure gold background, enormous almond eyes.
Midday: Beach. Cefalù's beach is right in front of the old town. Sunbeds €10-15 (less than half of Amalfi Coast prices). Water is clear and warm.
Lunch: Le Chat Noir (Via XXV Novembre 10) — sarde a beccafico (stuffed sardines), pasta with swordfish and mint, ~€20/person. Drive to Palermo airport (70 min) for departure, or spend a night in Palermo if your flight is early.
Southern Italy is 40-60% cheaper than the north. Boutique hotels for €60-100/night. Amazing trattoria dinners for €15-25/person. Car rental €30-50/day + fuel. The value is extraordinary.
Cave hotel in Matera, Michelin dinner in Ragusa, best B&Bs everywhere. Still dramatically cheaper than the equivalent quality in Rome/Florence/Venice.
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