Puglia walking tour in the spring: Lecce to Bari

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

Highlights of the tour 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 mysteries of Matera; sleeping in a restored 18th century masseria; surrounded by ancient olive trees; sailing on the Adriatic Sea; a cooking day in a 15th century tower 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 coastline. Three walks are in central Puglia, passing through forest, wheat fields, cherry orchards and olive groves.  Two are coastal walks: the first walk winds along the Ionian coast through Puglia's oldest national park while the other heads south down the Adriatic coast with glimpses of the mountains of Albania to the east and Corfu in the south (weather permitting).  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 then move a lovely hotel set in gardens surrounded by olive groves with a beautiful swimming pool, a recently restored 18th century 'masseria'.  Finally, we stay in a comfortable hotel in the centre of Bari.

In springtime the market gardens and kitchen gardens of Puglia are bursting with fresh produce (tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, 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 coastline. 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 Itria Valley are famous throughout Italy.  

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 a family-run vineyard in the Valle Itria during the tour. Wine is included with meals throughout the tour

Ivana grew up in Alberobello in central Puglia and still lives in the centre of town in her very own trullo house that she inherited from her grandmother.  She has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and a master’s in communication and has spent much of her adult life working in outdoor tourism, designing and leading tours in Puglia and other parts of Italy. 

She has a particular passion for hiking and spends much of her free time exploring the walking trails around her hometown.  She is a qualified Nordic walking trainer. 

Apart from Italian and English, she speaks French and Spanish and has travelled extensively in Europe.  She has spent several years living and working in London and had a year working holiday in Australia, mostly based in Brisbane. She is also a charming person and there are few people better place than Ivana to take you around Puglia.