Where to stay in Puglia

The heel: whitewashed towns, trulli, olive groves and a coast on both sides. Slower and cheaper than the north, best in a car, and at its finest either side of high summer.

Bari is the arrival point and an evening, not a base. Polignano a Mare, half an hour south by regionale, is the cliff town, swamped by lunchtime; Monopoli is a working port with coves inside the walls, and the better place to sleep. Ostuni, on its hill inland, is the Valle d'Itria base, with Cisternino, Locorotondo and Alberobello within forty minutes; Lecce opens the Salento.

It suits drivers and families. Car-free travellers manage only along the railway: the Adriatic line joins Bari, Polignano, Monopoli, Ostuni's station down on the plain and Lecce, but the Sud Est lines to Alberobello, Otranto and Gallipoli are slow and sparse, thinner still on Sundays, and the trulli country needs a car. Every old town is a ZTL: park at the walls and walk up.

A week splits between Monopoli or Ostuni, then Lecce, for Otranto, Gallipoli and the Ionian sand. Fly into Bari and out of Brindisi, and the drive never doubles back. Matera, an hour inland, takes two nights at the start. Alberobello fills with coaches from ten and empties by six. September is the month: warmest sea, lidos open, lanes empty.

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