Spring in Puglia

I’d been wanting to go to Puglia for a while – probably on a whim to see the trulli houses in Alberobello. I went to the town, which was full of tourists, enjoyed wandering around and grabbing a sandwich and was very glad to leave.

So Alberobello didn’t live up to my expectations but luckily Puglia has so much more to offer than that.

What I loved best about the towns I visited was the scent of orange trees. It can’t be packaged in a photo – you have to go there to experience it. It was the scent of holiday, having the freedom to stroll around and enjoy what nature has to offer. The scent reminded me to relax, forget about work for a while and make the most of being outdoors.

What I loved best about the villages and coastal areas was the dazzling array of wild flowers – poppies in the inland areas and tons of other flowers everywhere else – along the motorway verges, next to the coastal roads, on the beaches. I wish I knew the names of them, but sadly I don’t. I’ll add a photo to the post so maybe you can identify some of them.

The food was mostly good but varied in price and quality. Fantastic sandwiches in the non-touristy areas cost 4 Euros whereas an average sandwich at a beach bar with a gorgeous view was three times the price. It seems that location is everything. My personal culinary favourites were a pea soup starter at Cibus in Ceglie, a great fish meal at Café do Mar in St Maria di Leuca, where the waiter was particularly helpful, and the first breakfast at Masseria Selvaggia with cheese and tomatoes (very salty).

Lots of the people were friendly but we did leave one restaurant as the waitress was so rude. I know it might be frustrating if your customers are not fluent in Italian but we did make some effort to learn a few words and could generally muddle through with most people. This waitress, however, seemed to think it was ok to complain about the ‘Inglese’ tourists within earshot of us, at the very next table. It wasn’t ok, so we left. Shame, as the food looked good but hey ho, if you don’t feel welcome, there’s little point in staying.

My top two activities were cycling and driving along the coastal road from Otranto to Leuca – we liked that journey so much we did it in both directions on separate days. (Tip – it’s better to start in Leuca and head north).

Although we saw quite a few cyclists in Puglia we didn’t do much cycling ourselves. We were a bit early in the season and not many shops were open where you could hire bikes. After a big walk around Gallipolli, we finally managed to find a shop with old bikes for hire, and then had a fantastic day cycling to the nearby nature reserve. The roads are quiet and at times you could head off into the reserve itself. We followed the bike signs, which took us deep into the heart of the reserve, away from the main paths and ended up doing a lot of pushing of our bikes on the narrow paths covered with sand. It was fantastic. We stopped at what claimed to be the second most beautiful beach in Italy, Punta della Suina (read more here) and had the most expensive sandwiches of the holiday – fairly basic but fresh and hearty. I’m glad that we stopped there.

As for the coastal road – it was just breathtaking. We stopped off at various places including Porto Badisco, the natural swimming pool at Marina Serra and the splendid beach under the bridge (Ponto del Ciolo). I loved listening to Andrea Bocelli (his duet with Ed Sheeran) and seeing the wild flowers – it was perfect.

All in all – we had a great time. Here’s a quick summary of the highlights that made our Puglian holiday so memorable.

• cyling from Gallipolloi

• a guided tour (in Italian) of the WWF nature reserve near Lecce with Paolo (luckily one of the other participants did some translating for us)

• the countdowns on traffic lights

• Puglian pies – pasticciotto

• the scent of orange trees

• wildflowers everywhere

• rocky beaches on the Adriatic coast

• sandy beaches on the Ionian coast

• a massive waterfall with no water in Leuca

• trulli houses

• the friendly cat, Baghera, at the restaurant near to Masseria Selvaggia

• the unfriendly dog on the neighbouring roof terrace in Gallipolli

• ding dong ding dong ding dong – the bells of the nearby convent in old town Gallipolli

• il Duomo and Basilica S. Croce in Lecce – truly spectacular

• eating raw prawns

• seeing the hilltop towns in the Itria Valley

• pizza in Lecce

• wandering around Monopoli

• the statue of Domenico Modugno (singer of Volare) in Polignano a Mare

• staying at the gorgeous Villa Romasi in St Maria di Leuca

And here are some Italian words that I learned from a great language learning video - salve, permesso, posso, vorrei, altrettanto. (Link here)

Language Tip

You may have noticed that I started a couple of paragraphs with the expression 'what I loved best'. This is a good way to add emphasis to your writing.

I assume that expressions of this type are normally followed by a singular verb. As I wanted to say that I loved the wild flowers so much I added a singular grouping (the array of wildflowers) as this sounded better to me than using a plural verb.

Which do you prefer? (It's ok to have a different opinion to me.)

1. What I loved best was the array of wildflowers.

2. What I loved best were the wildflowers.

Want to get more language tips? Read more of my cycling and hiking posts here.