Puglia: An Understated Gem of Italy

When I started planning a trip to the southeast corner of Italy in late 2017, I knew very little about the "heel of the boot." Earlier that year I began following dozens of different Instagram accounts - travel and lifestyle bloggers, photographers, foodies, vineyards, resorts, restaurants, tourism organizations - all with a focus on Puglia (poo-lee-ya), also known as Salento for the lower portion of the region. Instagram has become one of the primary tools I use to research my travel aspirations, and it has served me well. Like other channels of SM, however, it can become a rabbit hole of epic proportions.

I was targeting late May 2018 for the trip, as the cooler spring temps were transitioning to warmer Adriatric breezes. While Puglia isn't as popular a tourist destination as other parts of Italy, this time of year was ideal for fewer crowds and lower prices. Despite wanting to be close to the water, I had done research on a centralized inland location from where we'd hub around the peninsula and landed on Lecce, known as the Florence of the south for its Baroque influences.

Being an avid user of Airbnb, I started scanning and tagging properties in Lecce where we could set up headquarters for the week. I landed on a gorgeous, ridiculously inexpensive apartment with a spacious rooftop terrace. Outdoor living space is always a must for me in Italy. Even the tiniest of patios and courtyards lend themselves to a morning cappuccino while the church bells toll, or a sunset aperitif before heading out for a late dinner. (Pro tip: wifi is not always offered in Airbnb properties in Italy, so if that's a must-have for you, be sure to check the full list of amenities. Also, many properties are several story walk-ups and don't have lifts, and they don't always specify this. If stairs pose an issue, make sure to ask the owner and/or read the reviews to confirm.) A few pics of our apartment below including the terrace.

Part of my original plan for this trip was to enroll in a week-long immersion program to bring my Italian to the next level. That idea morphed into a less-intensive itinerary with a language school based in Lecce run by a young woman who offered private as well as group classes. Scuola Mondo Italia e Homestay was a wonderful choice not only for its proximity to our headquarters, but mostly because it allowed us the flexibility to take a couple hours of classes each day and then venture off in our miniature Fiat to explore the peninsula at will. Rental cars in Puglia were also very inexpensive, roughly 20 USD per day.

 

Maria, our instructor, was vibrant and eager and passionate. She provided some structured lessons and gave us homework, but also invited us to direct our learning. Money well spent and such a pleasure to learn from. Her dog Maya was a little strict, though.

The historic center of Lecce is very accessible by foot and we got to know the area quite well within a day or so. Like other Italian cities, it awakens around 9am when shop owners open their doors and quiets down significantly after the lunch hour. Mid-afternoon is the ideal time for a nap, a book, or catching up on household duties. By the time late afternoon rolls around, the city comes alive again little by little, preparing for happy hour and dinner seatings. To eat dinner earlier than 8pm in Italy is to reveal yourself as a tourist...

There's never a bad time to stop, have a glass of wine, and people watch. The slow life is a trademark of Italy. A slow lunch, a slow stroll, a slow conversation. Do not rush. Anything. This bottle was consumed the day we got to Lecce. Savannah > Philly > Rome > Bari > Lecce. It was a loooong day. It's the kind of fatigue that slips into delirium quite nicely. But you must power through it! We survived.

Piazza del Duomo

Among its many charming characteristics, Lecce was not overrun with American tourists (which is sure to change given Puglia's rising popularity...). This in particular is appealing to me because in the bigger cities you find yourself "being American"; signage and menus are often in English, service staff speak English, and you just slip into lazy, entitled behavior. Not so in Lecce, where you're forced to step out of your comfort zone and immerse yourself. Even if you butcher their language, it's greeted with a smile because you tried. And if you're lucky, they'll repeat what you said (correctly), which furthers your learning a little bit more. You mustn't be afraid to try.

One of the phrases I practiced over and over again was "io capisco un po d'italiano" (I understand a little Italian). There are plenty of other easy phrases you can practice like please, thank you, excuse me, good morning/evening sir/madam, where is the bathroom, how much is that, this is delicious, what's your house wine, can you please adopt me, and so on. Jeb and I complemented each other well because I could read the language well and he could hear the language well. It made for some great couple's problem solving.

Back to exploration. The landscape in Puglia is vastly different from other parts of Italy I've explored. It's quite flat and arid, like parts of southern California or Arizona. It has an obvious Greek influence, which is evident in the architecture and colors, with bright white hues and buildings made from the surrounding limestone (as compared to the warm hues you find in places like Rome and Tuscany). There are even still Greek-influenced dialects in Salento, undoubtedly carried over from inhabitants long ago.

We wove our way around the peninsula each day, reaching the eastern and western coasts within an hour or so. Highways are well-maintained and with GPS you can get just about anywhere. As with any place, you still need to rely on common sense and if you have one, your sense of direction. On the west coast of the heel, we explored the area north of Gallipoli where little beach towns dot the coastline. The Torre Santa Maria dell'Alto was a highlight, an ancient hilltop fortress with panoramic views of overlooking the Gulf of Taranto.

Torre Santa Maria dell'Alto

We meandered south and hit Santa Caterina, Santa Maria al Bagno, and Punto Fisso Beach. These seaside hamlets were quite a bit off the main highway. As you drive off SS101 and head toward the coast, you're surrounded by olive groves, farmed land, vineyards, livestock and country homes, some of which look like they've been standing for centuries. Salento is largely rural and what's not to love about the Italian countryside? I loved the hand-built stone fences marking the perimeter of the olive groves, which like the olive trees themselves where short in stature.

Santa Maria al Bagno

From the eastern shoreline of Puglia, you can see Albania across the Adriatic Sea on a clear day. As it turned out, our Airbnb host was a championship sailor and upon our departure suggested that next time he'd sail us to Greece. Not a hard sell... I found the rugged cliffs and stone formations that rise  above sea level to be the Salento that I had envisioned and what drew me to this area. We visited the dramatic and ancient Grotto Zinzulusa one day, which is a seaside cave system accessible by foot. We also hit Torre Sant'Andrea and San Cataldo on the east coast.

Grotto Zinulusa

Contrasting the dark, moist caves of Zinulusa was the beautiful, brightly colored rock spires at Torre Sant'Andrea. The color of the water, not fully captured here, was captivating. The arches of stone as you see below, eroded away by the Adriatic. Behind Jeb, Albania in the distance (less than 100 nautical miles away). 

Torre Sant'Andrea 

It wasn't uncommon to come upon a town along the coast that was clearly "asleep" during the shoulder season with closed up seaside hotels and restaurants, but would surely come alive during the summer holiday with Italian tourists.

Of course, I haven't even mentioned the food or wine of Puglia yet... The food: simpler in nature, some dishes almost peasant-like, only fresh, local ingredients are used of course. Orecchiette (little ears) with turnip greens is a Pugliese staple.

Horse (cavallo) is common on the menu as is seafood of various tastes like sea urchins. (I'm pretty sure we unknowingly had some cavallo meatballs...) We found a couple favorite restaurants in Lecce, one in particular that we returned to many times both for the quality of the food and the price. A carafe of house red wine (repeat after me: vino rosso della casa... vino rosso della casa...) and two entrees, 25 euro. (Always ask for the house wine! It's often very inexpensive and locally made and stored in a barrel right in the restaurant - "on tap" so to speak.) The elderly gentleman who greeted us each time, whose name escapes me now, became a warm, familiar face to us.

The wine in Puglia is making a major comeback from earlier decades in which it was known to be "filler" wine as I understand it - less sophisticated and mass produced for export to other regions. We ventured to a winery one day, Vini Menhir Salento, only to find it was closed. Lucky for us, a group of men who had traveled from afar just to stock up on their wine got a hold of a shop employee and she opened up for us all. We were really just tagging along at that point. We bought a few bottles to bring back to Lecce. I was disappointed they weren't open because the interior and exterior was superbly charming and their restaurant and wines highly rated. I just wanted to park my rear in their patio and munch on something salty while having a glass of chilled rosato. Alas...

Around the corner from Menhir was an unassuming church, chapel really, that seemed like it'd been somewhat abandoned. But when I stuck my head into the primitive wood slat door, I found a sweet little place of worship with fresh linens and flowers at the altar and a few chairs scattered about. It seemed like a special place, the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows. And someone lovingly took care of her.

It was late afternoon. We strolled around the quiet little town of Minervino di Lecce and had a gelato with the locals. Because, that's just what you do in Italy. Like a glass of wine, there's never a bad time for gelato (pistachio is my favorite, for the record). Minervino di Lecce has zero tourists. Not a one. It's population is about 4,000 and it's out in the middle of the countryside where grapevines and olive groves stretch as far as the eye can see. 

It's a step back in time, a seemingly ancient one. I could've stayed longer, I really wanted to. In some ways though, I felt like an intruder in their world. We sat for a little while in the main piazza before making the trek back to Lecce and watched a handful of elderly men sitting on benches outside of a cafe. They were permanent fixtures, likely to have been repeating this daily afternoon ritual for many years, at least since they stopped farming the land or working the butcher shop or tailoring clothes. I wish I'd taken their picture. 

I remember saying to Jeb, what do people do for fun around here?! What a shallow thought that was... as if the sleepy nature of the town was some equivalent to a life less fulfilling than mine, less stimulating, less valuable. What they do is LIVE. They've inhabited these lands for hundreds of years and I would wager their collective lives have been hard. Damn hard. But they persevere. They plant, harvest, tend, cook, eat, learn, read, sleep, dance, cry, laugh, and love. Just like you and me.