9 Days in Puglia

Could you tell us a little about what you want to see and do? I don’t find other people’s favorites helpful without any context, but in pretty much any month, Lecce would be one of my suggestions and in October doubly so.
If your flight out is not super early, you can stay in one of the towns along the train line near Bari if you were not interested in Bari itself, though being the transport hub, Bari should be considered.
Last, in neighboring Basilicata, Matera would be on my list as well. There is a direct airport bus from Bari if it aligns with your schedule, otherwise reached via Bari.

I’ve been to that area three times, and I like to stay in multiple cities per trip, but I still just use public transportation. Look up the following on YouTube tourist videos and TripAdvisor to see what appeals to you of these where I stayed. You can search for my three Puglia trip reports on this forum, also.

Matera (near Puglia region)
Trani - 2X
Bari (I stayed here two times because of the San Nicola festival). Otherwise, I would pick a different city.
Monopoli
Polignano a Mare - 3X
Lecce - 2X
Ostuni - 2X
Martina Franca
Locorotondo
Alberobello - 2X

The Puglia region stretches more than 200 miles so you'll need to do more research to narrow down what you want to do and see. There is so much variety and possibility that what other people have done is unlikely to match your top choices. We found the book "Lonely Planet Puglia & Basilicata" useful in describing Puglia and for planning our visit . It's about 15 years old but the towns haven't changed that much (the train times in the book are generally wrong though). We also looked for blogs with stories from travel in Puglia, and watched YouTube videos such as walking tours.

A car is useful but not required. Definitely install the Trenitalia app since the stations are not staffed in most smaller towns and some ticket machines only take coins. Instead just buy tickets using the app. We stayed in Lecce during a 4-day visit and took trains and once a bus to visit nearby towns. Figure you can visit one town a day. Restaurants were open until around 2pm and then closed until dinner at around 7-8pm. Most stores closed by 1pm and didn't reopen until 4-5pm or so. Often churches and museums are closed in the afternoon as well. So for most tourists they get out in the morning and visit, have lunch, then relax in the afternoon (at the coast, at the hotel, etc)

We visited this region a few years ago, and though we barely scratched the surface, we were very happy with our experience. We stayed 4 nights in Polignano a Mare at a wonderful Airbnb and 3 nights in Lecce (a must!) in a charming b&b. We then stayed in Matera for just 2 nights (would’ve loved to stay there an additional 1 or 2 nights). We visited some of the charming towns as day trips and they’re all wonderful to see. The only place I would not want to stay in is Alberobello as it’s such an overtouristed destination (though I’m sure the area around it has worthwhile places to stay).

Here’s the reply I left a couple of nights ago on your other posting of the same question, in case you delete it to keep everything in one post:

Last fall, we had two weeks in Puglia, flying in and out of Naples, but driving to Puglia and taking a train back to Naples from Bari. We weren’t there for beach time and stayed in historic towns inland, although we drove to some (historic) towns on the coast on daytrips, along with several other charming and fascinating towns in the interior.
I would return to all of the towns we stayed, and we had apartments booked through Airbnb. First town was Altamura, the “City of Bread,” next was the walled city of Lecce in southern Puglia (we stayed just outside the walls), and the third was Martina Franca, inside the very atmospheric Medieval walls, with winding streets that seemed impossibly narrow. Our fourth stay was just for one night, in Bari after we turned in the rental car, and before taking the train the next day back to Naples.
Bari could’ve been worth more time, if we had had the time, but for our top three places, I’d pick the other three towns above Bari. If you wanted just two suggestions besides Bari, I’d recommend Lecce and Martina Franca more than Altamura, but all of them were very worthwhile.

P.S. This thread, above, is under the “Italy” category, which is, correctly, where most questions/answers about places and sights in Italy show up on this Travel Forum.

Your duplicate thread is under the “Italy Trip Reports: Hotels & Restaurants” category, which is mostly where people describe where they stayed and ate on a trip they’ve already taken. As somebody else suggested on that thread, you might want to delete it so that you don’t have to monitor two separate postings about the same question, and so that you’re less likely to get confusing responses.

Happy travels!