As one heads left off the autostrade at Foggia and takes the winding roads high up into the hills of Puglia, it’s easy to think you’ve transported yourself much, much further north.
The salted sea becomes a distant memory, and the pale green olive groves and whitewashed buildings are left behind as the landscapes of this notoriously flat southern region of Italy begin to rise and resemble something a little more like the contours of Tuscany or Umbria.
Puglia – the part of Italy between two seas where you can find the stiletto heel of its ‘boot’ – is best known for its popular east coast towns, cities, and swimming spots come summertime.
We first visited back in 2016, and it’s responsible for kickstarting our passion for travel in Italy. We visited again in 2018, experiencing it in the curious period before spring begins to bloom, and had long planned to head back for another summer there once we’d got better acquainted with other parts of Italy.
The opportunity arose this September, with the chance to return to Puglia coming soon after our Emily’s language school stint in Bologna and our two-week Calabrian road trip.
Is there such a thing as too much Italy in a single summer? Not a chance.
The trip would be split in two distinct parts: a week of revisiting our old favourites and searching out some new on the (now) well-established south-east coast, followed by a week experiencing lesser-known, lesser-visited villages and small towns of Puglia as part of a project by the Italian Tourism Board.
The purpose? To showcase the the range of slow, meaningful travel experiences available across the country’s twenty regions, beyond the better known cities.
And this is why, after the dolce vita delights of Monopoli, Polignano a Mare, Otranto, Ostuni, and Santa Maria di Leuca, we headed northwest toward the rolling green hills of Foggia, toward windmills standing like sentries in the valley dips, wheatfields, and a trio of charming hidden-away villages perched on the foothills of the Apennine mountains.
This is where we wandered in search of a different side of Puglia.
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