Vibrant Puglia - five beautiful hill towns

For us, the most memorable moments came from interaction with the local population. With the region being relatively untrod by tourists, people still have plenty of time for, and interest in, visitors.

The towns do not hold any particularly spectacular artistic treasures. Just being there in these beautiful places without an agenda was very enjoyable - with occasional surprises (beautiful beach at Pilone, most memorable lunch in Locorotondo) providing the highlights.

Stay in a place where you can relax - I suggest somewhere out of town. We enjoyed an end-of-day swim and freshly-picked prickly pear on several occasions.

Quick Tips:

Remember that many restaurants close early on Fridays, particularly if they are slightly off the tourist trail. Also, people eat dinner late - they might not open before 9pm.

Park in blue-marked bays - they have free and unlimited time (unlike the white-marked ones). In the towns, driving is easier earlier in the morning (before 10a.m.) and in the early afternoon.

Speak to people. Ask for local advice. Even if you know no Italian. The spontaneous friendliness is wonderful.

Best Way To Get Around:

We flew to Bari (about 100km from Cisternino) on Ryanair. Ryanair also flies to Brindisi (about 60km) and it is worth booking early.

We didn't explore hiking options - the heat and relatively flat terrain made it less attractive for us. We wandered a bit among the olive trees, but with no destination in mind.

Public transport is sporadic and not a good option for getting between the hill towns. We did not try taxis.

We stayed at a bed and breakfast approximately 5km from Cisternino – Guarino Pietro (Contrada Marangiulo 9, tel 080-4448722, EUR60 per room per night). As well as being a centrally located base for the hill towns of the region, its swimming-pool and location among the olive trees made it a relaxing place to come home to. At the moment it is still a cozy B+B, but, like much of the Puglian tourist infrastructure, it is expanding fast. It has four rooms now, with four more planned by Christmas 2004.

Cisternino town offers a compact old quarter and a great promenade with views over the Valle d’Itria. We enjoyed people-watching and aimless strolling through the pedestrianised old town. A Saturday-morning visit to the barber (EUR9) was fun and a great opportunity for attempts to discuss local affairs with the other patrons. A Sunday evening farewell to a parish priest brought an impressive array of smart clothes to the evening passagiata.

Our favourite restaurant in Cisternino was Trattoria Bell’ Italia (Via Duca D’aosta 29, tel 080-444798) – in the heart of the old town. A spectacular (and apparently unlimited) array of starters followed by delicious steak with grana (cheese, a bit like parmesan) was the highlight for me. Accompanied by Locorotondo wine. Total cost – EUR15 per person and highly recommended.

Like most of the rest of Puglia, driving in Cisternino was easier than we had expected. Parking was also relatively straightforward – blue-painted bays for unlimited and free parking. White-painted bays for time-limited parking (buy tickets at the small tobacconist shops).

Near the top of the hill, Ostuni Cathedral is an impressive and restful place to sit for a while (and where the long sleeves and no bare shoulders entry policy appears to have been relaxed, at least on hot September afternoons). From the outside, it appears to be the only building that is not whitewashed – with its green and gold tiled dome giving it a bit of an Eastern feeling. Near the cathedral, on the top of the hill, is a panoramic view down over the olive trees to the Adriatic. The sea looked very tempting from up there.

We decided to head down the hill for lunch – to try to find a local lunch-spot away from the more touristic places in the old town. By the time we reached the bottom of the hill, we discovered that all of the restaurants/trattorias/osterias were closed for the weekend – this apparently happens all over the non-touristed parts of Puglia on Friday afternoons. We found a small grocery store and stocked up on picnic cheese, salami, bread, and olives. We headed for the beach – following signs for "Marina di Ostuni" – and chanced upon the Pilone public beach. A fishermen’s shelter right on the waves provided an idyllic (and shady) desert-island venue for an excellent picnic. Followed by a stroll along the sandy beach and a swim in the gentle waves.

The steep and winding road into Martina Franca made me glad that our hire-car was an automatic (and small). The road leads through a small industrial estate and then to plenty of the blue-marked (free and unlimited time) parking bays on the edge of the old town.

As we headed towards the old town, a wedding party was emerging from one of the beautiful baroque churches on the edge of town. The church façade provided an impassive and fitting backdrop for the noisy occasion and the smartly dressed people below. The bride and groom stopped the traffic in their Rover and gave us a wave.

Off the main street and entering into the winding alleys of the Martina Franca old town, it was noticeable how quickly the traffic noises disappeared. We could hear people eating lunch, and the occasional whiff of garlic was certainly tempting. The whitewashed streets made the hanging baskets of geraniums and other flowers look even brighter. We ended up in the Piazza Plebiscito and headed for the restaurant on the square for lunch – it was full and we made do with focaccia and olives from the nearby bakery. Eating overlooking the square looks like fun – bustling with people, and with extra glamour provided by wedding-parties having their photos taken on the square.

Wandering on through quiet Martina Franca in the early afternoon, we were impressed by the Baroque churches and the palm trees in the heat. It felt almost deserted – but still beautiful and evocative of how we had imagined Southern Italy to be (but cleaner, and richer, and with no dust). We couldn’t help feeling that this feeling of sunned torpor cannot last for long in such a beautiful place – we were lucky to be there when we were. We enjoyed the apparent lack of a tourist "industry" – we couldn’t find postcards and the exhibition at the city hall was closed – and we particularly appreciated the friendliness of the people.

An excellent, lazy day.

As in Martina Franca, we parked in the blue-marked bays at the bottom of the hill and then strolled up towards the old town. We picked up some fresh almonds from the salesman in front of the parking area and enjoyed watching the smartly dressed Sunday morning crowd walking and talking and meeting-and-greeting. We stopped at the shady park on the edge of the old town – with its variety of trees, its war memorial, and its views across the valley dotted with trulli.

Heading through the gate and into the pedestrianised part of town, the most noise we could hear was from the church service being relayed through loudspeakers onto the square. Having learned our late-lunch lesson in Martina Franca, we used the loudspeakers to make sure we found a lunch spot before everyone got out of church.

The place we found for lunch – La Taverna del Duca (Via Papatotero, 3, EUR15 per person, with wine) and in the middle of the old town – was one of the highlights of our fortnight in Puglia. Very highly recommended. About four or five tables, and when we arrived there, the place was empty. When we tried to ask about the menu, we were firmly "invited" to come into the cooking area and inspect the oven and poke the sausages. This friendly, if slightly eccentric, service continued throughout the meal, and we enjoyed fantastic starters and (needless to say) delicious sausages. All washed down with more Locorotondo wine. Shortly after we arrived, the place filled up with churchgoers, and the noisy family atmosphere was fantastic. When we finished, our hostess was busy in the kitchen and she didn’t see us leave. Five minutes later, she found us in the square and the "thank you" hugs were as unexpected as they were enjoyed. Really excellent.

After the excitement of lunch, we enjoyed a mellow early-afternoon stroll through the quiet streets of Locorotondo. Again, like Martina Franca, peaceful and mellow and with occasional unexpected views as we came around corners. As we headed home, the only people left in the park were the soccer team enjoying a smoke and some wine. We weren’t sure if this was their pre-game warm-up, or post-game match synopsis. Either way, it looked like the right thing to do.

We stopped in on Alberobello for an hour on our way from Cisternino to points north. An hour was enough for us. We joined the tour buses in the white-marked (€2 per hour, tickets from the shop across the street) parking lot and headed into the streets of the trulli. There must be hundreds of these trulli in Alberobello, and they are an interesting sight – there is even a double-story "super trullo" that is a church. Otherwise, it seems like they are all given over to multi-lingual advertisements, post-cards, and pottery, and camera film, and other tourist essentials. The place did feel a bit like a theme park; our guide book describes the trulli as "hobbit houses," and the whole place was a bit surreal.

We were not there in the evening or in the early morning. I imagine that Alberobello must be an evocative place when the tour buses have left town. We were glad to have seen the town, and selfishly glad that it seems like most visitors to the region appear to not get much further than Alberobello.