Puglia

Summer in Puglia is built around the sea, and the coast offers two very different kinds. The Ionian side of the Salento, from Porto Cesareo down past Gallipoli to Pescoluse and Torre San Giovanni, has long stretches of pale sand and shallow, clear, turquoise water that warms to about 25°C in August. The Adriatic side is rockier: limestone platforms and coves around Polignano a Mare and Monopoli, sea stacks and sandy bays at Torre dell'Orso and around Otranto, and inlets such as Baia dei Turchi. Further north, the Gargano adds white cliffs, sea caves and coves around Vieste.

The water is comfortable for swimming from June to late September, sometimes into October. August is crowded, with paid lidos lining the most popular sands and Italians on their own vacation, while June and September give the same sea with more room. Staying in the Salento puts both coasts within easy reach of one base.

Puglia eats from its land and sea, and the cooking is simple, generous and rooted in produce. Orecchiette with turnip tops, fave e cicoria, fresh burrata and stracciatella from the Murge around Andria, focaccia barese, panzerotti and frisa with tomatoes are everyday fare, and along the Bari waterfront raw sea urchins and octopus are eaten straight from fishermen's stalls. Lecce has its own baked goods, the rustico and the custard pasticciotto, taken with an iced almond coffee.

The region produces a vast share of Italy's olive oil, and its wines, Primitivo from Manduria and Negroamaro from the Salento, are rich and good value. Eating out ranges from family trattorias and butcher-grill houses in the Valle d'Itria, where you choose meat at the counter and it is grilled for you, to farm cooking at rural masserie. It is less a place for refined tasting menus than for honest, deeply regional meals.

Puglia's heritage is spread across its towns rather than gathered in one city, but the best of it is distinctive. Lecce is a whole town of honey-coloured baroque, with the carved facade of Santa Croce and a Roman amphitheatre half uncovered in its main square. Alberobello's districts of conical trulli are unlike anywhere else in Europe, and Castel del Monte, the octagonal hilltop castle of Frederick II, stands alone above the Murge.

The Romanesque cathedrals are a thread through the region: Trani's on the edge of the sea, the Basilica of San Nicola in Bari's old town, and Otranto's with its vast twelfth-century floor mosaic. The sanctuary of San Michele at Monte Sant'Angelo in the Gargano is a site of world pilgrimage. Museums are modest, and seeing the main sights means driving between towns.

Nights out in Puglia are a summer affair. In July and August Gallipoli becomes the region's party town, with beach clubs running from sunset into the small hours and crowds of young Italians filling the old town. Along the Salento coast, beach bars host DJ nights, and Lecce's baroque centre fills with people drinking in the squares and narrow lanes.

Bari has the most year-round life, with bars in the old town and around the Umbertino district. Elsewhere, evenings centre on the passeggiata, long dinners and a late drink in a piazza. Outside summer, the coast goes quiet.

Most of Puglia is gentle country: a flat to rolling plateau of olive groves, dry-stone walls and red soil, best seen by bicycle through the Valle d'Itria or among the ancient twisted olive trees between Ostuni and Fasano. The real landscape drama is in the Gargano, a mountainous promontory in the north with the beech woods of the Foresta Umbra, white cliffs, sea caves to explore by boat, and the Tremiti islands offshore for snorkelling and diving.

In the south, the Salento coast has cliff paths around Otranto, Porto Badisco and Santa Maria di Leuca, and wetland reserves such as the Alimini lakes. Spring and autumn are the seasons for walking and cycling; summer heat makes long hikes hard work.

Puglia is a region of many small towns, and moving between them is much of the pleasure. From a base in the Valle d'Itria, whitewashed Ostuni, Locorotondo, Cisternino and Martina Franca are each a short drive, and the sea towns of Polignano a Mare and Monopoli are below them on the coast. North of Bari, Trani, Molfetta and Giovinazzo line the Adriatic with harbour fronts and old quarters.

Matera, with its cave dwellings cut into a ravine, lies just over the border in Basilicata, about an hour from Bari, and is the outing most visitors put first. From Lecce, Otranto, Gallipoli and the Greek-speaking villages of the Grecia Salentina are close, and the Primitivo country around Manduria makes a wine day out.

Puglia suits families who want a beach vacation with an easy pace. The shallow, sandy Ionian beaches of the Salento and the gentle bays of the Gargano are good for small children, and Italian family life, with children up late in the piazza, makes them welcome everywhere. Masserie and villas with pools are a common way to stay.

The main attraction built for children is the large drive-through safari park and adjoining amusement park at Fasano. Beyond that, the day is the beach, gelato and the trulli at Alberobello, which children tend to love. August heat and crowds are the main difficulties, and a car is needed.

A car is the practical way to see Puglia. Roads are generally good and uncrowded, and the Valle d'Itria, the coast south of Bari and the Salento are all short drives from one another. The region is long, though. The Gargano in the north is four to five hours by road from Santa Maria di Leuca at the southern tip, so a trip that takes in both ends needs two bases. In August the coastal roads slow down, and parking near the popular beaches and old towns is tight.

Main-line trains link Foggia, Bari, Brindisi and Lecce and stop at Polignano a Mare and Monopoli, so you can stay along that line without a car. Local railways and buses do reach the inland towns and the Salento, but slowly and not often. Once you are in a town, the historic centres are compact and best seen on foot.

Shopping in Puglia is mostly about crafts and food. Grottaglie has a whole quarter of ceramic workshops, Lecce is known for papier-mache figures made in small studios, and towns across the Valle d'Itria sell linen, embroidered textiles and handmade pottery. Olive oil, Primitivo, taralli and preserved vegetables are the things most visitors carry home.

For mainstream fashion, Bari's grid of streets around Via Sparano has the usual Italian chains and some boutiques. There is no luxury district of note, and coastal towns lean towards resort wear and souvenir shops.

Eating and drinking are the good-value part of a Puglia trip: trattoria meals, street snacks, local wine and market produce cost less than in most of northern and central Italy. Accommodation is where costs rise. In July and August, rooms near the best Salento beaches, restored masserie and boutique stays in Ostuni or Polignano are firmly priced for the high season, and the paid sun-loungers of the lidos add up.

Car hire is close to essential and is part of the budget. June and September give the same coast at noticeably lower cost, and inland towns are cheaper bases than the beachfront.

Bari's Teatro Petruzzelli, one of Italy's largest opera houses, is the centre of formal music, with an opera, ballet and concert season. In summer, Martina Franca hosts a long-running opera festival known for rare and rediscovered works, staged in the courtyard of its ducal palace.

The living tradition is pizzica, the trance-like folk dance of the Salento, heard at village festivals through the summer and gathered each August in the Notte della Taranta, a huge open-air concert at Melpignano. Lecce has a small theatre and concert season. Outside these, live music is occasional.

Puglia is restful because of its countryside rather than its baths. Old fortified farmhouses among the olive groves, the masserie, have been turned into quiet country stays, many with pools and their own spas, and the long lunches and empty afternoons of the Valle d'Itria set an unhurried pace.

The thermal tradition is small and spread out. At Santa Cesarea Terme on the Salento coast, sulphur springs rise from sea caves below Moorish-style villas, and Torre Canne near Fasano has a long-established thermal spa. Margherita di Savoia, by the great salt pans in the north, offers mud and saltwater treatments. None of these is a reason to plan a trip around bathing. Puglia suits someone who wants a quiet place to slow down, not someone looking for a spa culture.