Puglia walking tour in the spring: Bari to Lecce

Frederick II was a little biased, but he did have a point.  With its castles, rolling hills, intirguing towns, spectacular coastline and Baroque extravagances, Puglia has lost of none of its fascination.

Highlights include:  wandering the medieval lanes and allies of Bari Vecchia (old Bari); Frederick's extraordinary castle of Castel del Monte; walking along country lanes lined with ancient dry-stone walls, olive groves and fields filled with wildflowers; exploring the myseries of Matera; sleeping in a restored 18th century 'trullo'; an evening with dinner in a 15th century 'masseria' (a fortified farm complex) surrounded by 2,000 year old olive trees; sailing on the Adriatic Sea; a cooking day in a 17th century palazzo in the heart of the 'Salento' district; coastal walks along both the Adriatic and Ionian Seas; the fabulous Pugliese cooking; and last, but not least, the warm southern hospitality.

Visiting Puglia is an adventure.  It is a delightfully different world to the fashionable streets of Florence, Milan and Venice: little English is spoken; time is flexible; it has been little touched by tourism and surprises lurk around every corner.  A trip to Puglia is a fascinating and rewarding experience, particularly in the spring.

Without mountains, Puglia offers relaxed walking through undulating hills, following country lanes lined with drystone walls or following trails along spectacular coast line. Three walks are in central Puglia, passing through forest, wheat fields, cherry orchards and olive groves.  Two are coastal walks: the first heads south down the Adriatic coast with glimpses of the mountains of Albania to the east and Corfu in the south (weather permitting) while the other walk winds along the Ionian coast through Puglia's oldest national park.  The main feature of all the walks in this season is the wildflowers.  The walks range from 4 to 14 kilometres and take from 1 to 4 hours.  In some cases it is possible to shorten the walks or opt out and join the walkers for lunch.

We stay in the best accommodation available, ie low-key and gracious. The tour starts with two nights in a lovely hotel in the pedestrian centre of Lecce, the ‘Florence of the South’.  The next is a welcoming 5-star boutique hotel with a roof terrace with views over the port in the heart of the most charming town in Puglia.  We thenmove a lovely hotel set in gardens surrounded by olive groves with a beautiful swimming pool, each guest having their own restored, 18th century ‘trullo’ (traditional conical stone house).  Finally, we stay in a comfortable hotel in the centre of Bari.

In spring time the market gardens and kitchen gardens of Puglia are bursting with fresh produce (tomatoes, zucchini, egg-plants, artichokes, asparagus, fava beans) which provides the basis for all the region’s cooking.  Pugliese cuisine is simple, rustic and cheerful, based on the abundance of its fertile plains and coast line. As Italy's wheat belt, pasta and a variety of excellent breads are pillars of Pugliese diet, as is olive oil (Puglia has over 50 million olive trees, some over 2000 years old).  Puglia is bounded by two seas, the Adriatic and Ionian, and has an abundance of seafood, while the butchers of the Istria Valley are famous throughout Italy.  One of the highlights of the tour is the cooking day towards the end of the tour, when the secrets of the local cuisine will be explored (see the initinerary for details).

For a long time, Puglia was a workhorse, providing robust bulk wines to bolster the pallid wines of northern Italy.  However, since the 1990s, a new generation of vignerons have reinvented the industry, launching traditional wines such as Primitivo (known as Zinfandel in the USA) onto the international market, as well as creating new wines from ancient grapes, many on the edge of extinction (such as susmaniello and minutollo).  We will visit two wineries, one headed up by a young man in the Itria Valley, while the second is one of the most celebrated producers of Primitivo (where we'll have a light lunch after a degustation).  Wine is included with meals throughout the tour

Simon Tancred will lead the tour and we will be accompanied on the by a fully qualified local guide.  The founder and director of Hidden Italy walking tours, Simon has over thirty years’ experience hiking and walking in Italy, including twenty-five years leading group tours for Hidden Italy.  ‘Great Walks’ magazine recently said he had the best job in the world… (there are other much more worthy jobs around but I am lucky my passion has become my profession) - click here to read the interview.