Driving Bari to Matera

It’s all 4 lane freeway once you get on it near Bari Nord. Just follow your google maps navigator

In Sept-Oct of this year, we did a trip that started in the airport in Bari (where we rented a car), and eventually finished in Matera (though after a good, long, multi-week wander around Puglia). All done via that rental car. We drove back from Matera to the airport in Bari, and flew away.

I did a lot of driving on this trip. 98% of it was easy, stress-free, and as pleasant as one could imagine. The last 2% was more stressful, occasionally with "a full load" of tasks and stress. I can manage a lot of task-juggling and prioritization behind the wheel (I am a lifelong pilot, which I have found makes me a good driver, able to manage lots of input all while keeping the most critical priorities covered: staying alive, staying out of collisions, making sure nobody goes to the hospital or morgue). I'll admit there were a few minutes during our roughly 3-week Puglia trip when I had just about reached "task saturation" (the point where any more additional tasks could have resulted in Very Bad Outcomes) but those were very few and only fleeting.

The biggest driving and car-related challenges I faced were:

• The initial drive out of the Bari car rental parking lot - at the airport (really, navigating out of the airport parking lot!). Part of that was due to the confusing signage or lack of signage, the narrow spaces between the parked cars, and the fact that it was my first few minutes in the car.
• Trying to find parking in a few of the old cities, in or near the center. I knew this would not be easy, and in almost all cases the best choice I made was simply to park at a paid lot well outside the old center and proceed on foot. This is almost always your best choice.
• A couple of times, as I was approaching the old center of a city, I was looking for parking but got funneled into a series of one-way streets, which inexorably led me to streets that were increasingly narrow, at one point so narrow that the tires of our car were getting squeezed by the curbs on both sides of the street at the same time - even though we had a small car, the street got so narrow I could feel (and hear) the tires rubbing on both curbs. If the street had gotten another 1/2 inch more narrow, we would have been wedged in. Of course there were cars (smaller than mine) behind me, on my bumper, so I was trying not to stop. In that case the street widened, we made it through the choke point, and drove onward to easier streets. My lesson learned: be more careful entering any one-way street near an old center, because even if you can get through a few blocks, you may have no options to bail out and turn off to a wider/better street, you may be forced to go deeper and deeper into the center, where the streets may become physically impassable. Of course, in cases like this, there's probably a ZTL ahead (in my case, we were there when the ZTL was not active, so it was legal to drive through, though neither easy nor wise to do so).

As long as you are very disciplined about avoiding situations as described above (anytime you get close to the historic center of an old city), I think most reasonably skilled/experienced drivers can do this. If you have little (or no) experience driving overseas (I have lots), you should be super-cautious.

An axiom I always remember is: The first 20 minutes of driving in any foreign country are the most stressful and dangerous. Parachuting into Italy, finding yourself behind the wheel (especially right after a long redeye flight) is not for the faint of heart. You (and your right-seat copilot/navigator/helper) need to both take your jobs seriously (deadly seriously, like as serious as a head-on collision at a combined velocity or 200 km/hr). It can be done, but it will require you to bring your A game, at least initially and at times afterward.

I'm currently working on a trip report for this trip. It'll still be a while (busy busy) but may address some of your questions if you can be patient. Hope this helps.

Oh, one more tip about exiting the airport and finding your way: "drive" the route via Google maps street view. Drive it repeatedly. Until you recognize every turn, every highway exit, every signpost, every place you'll need to merge, until you have have names for each tree or bush growing by the side of the road, and know all the details like the back of your hand. Some of the photos from Google are old and the bushes and trees may have changed, but it'll make it easier and give you confidence - especially for each turn.

Note the look of things, the kind of signage you'll see, the traffic flow, pay particular attention to what the exits look like and how they are marked. I did this and it made finding my way (once I got out of the bloody parking lot...) safely and with no missed turns. Driving there is different than here, and it will take you a while to get in the mindset so you can drive with a degree of confidence and comfort. It will get easier after you do it for a while, but be super super careful in the first 20-30 minutes, and then each time you encounter something new. Try to have good, detailed information on exactly where you are going and how you will get there.

Good luck!

My only tip is to make sure you have a plan for how you will approach Matera to access your hotel/parking (ask hotel about parking), as there are a few ways to approach the town and you want the easiest for avoiding the ZTL.
I loved staying at Torretta ai Sassi (twice!) and we always found street parking a short walk away, but things could have gotten more crowded in years since. As an example, if staying there, you approach town on SP 10, Matera Sud, then park on Via Lucana.

When I was planning when/where to get my rental car (I'll be there in March) someone said its actually easy to leave from the train station in Bari, so I reserved pick up and drop off there. I'm a rather nervous driver and not the best at parking, so I understand your concerns. I'm planning to research parking spaces and how best to get to and from my rentals prior so I avoid driving inside towns and cities. I'm hoping being there in March will help since there won't be so many tourists on the roads or filling that parking lots.

I don’t find driving in Puglia more stressful than any new place where I’ve never driven before. And it’s not because I’ve learned how to drive in Italy. The first time I drove into Manhattan many years ago (before navigators even existed), coming from NJ obviously I was a bit apprehensive, but in the end everything always turns out ok. Some stress at the wheel is good as it increases your focus.

I did not rent from the Bari airport (I drove all the way from my place in Tuscany), so I’m not familiar with that airport, but the idea of testing the drive on Google Maps Street view is a good one. I always do so before driving to a new place. For Matera I parked on the streets, but after you confirm your parking options with your host, save the place on your Google maps and “test drive” to that lot also using Google Maps Street View. Driving in city streets (anywhere in the world) tends to be more challenging than driving on the highways. If your host does not suggest a parking place in Matera you can also find one yourself by doing a search on Google Maps. Just zoom in the general area of your accommodations and insert the key word PARCHEGGIO in the Search box.

Or, since a car is not really needed in Matera, you could take the train there from Bari and pick up your rental car when leaving Matera.

I only began driving in Europe a few years ago; prior to that my partner did the driving.
Now I find it very, very easy to(the driving, not the parking) and. we had a car for three weeks during a trip to Puglia this past October.

I found getting out of Bari airport to be a breeze.
BUT: Where are you heading after Matera? If you will move on to a destination in Puglia, I would take the bus from Bari airport to Matera. And take the bus back to Bari airport and collect your rental car.

We'll go to Puglia (and Matera again in May). We will arrive in Matera after 4-5 nights in Naples.
After or (sadly, only two) days in Matera, we will take the bus to Bari airport and rent our car there from SIXT.

There are hotels in Matera that offer parking in a garage in the newer/upper city. They then shuttle you direct to the hotel. And vice versa.

I remember so well my first visit to Matera, coming from a masseria in the Montegrosso/Minervino area.
Here is the account of how we approached and, finally, arrived at our hotel in Matera on our first visit, long ago; I remember it very well because the previous night we learned from RAI tv that Osama bin Laden had been captured.
This won't help anyone today, of course, for I've not seen any of the "scooter guides" on subsequent visits. Note that this visit took place before we had GPS in the car.

<<<<<<From Altamura we drove on, reaching the first of several exits for Matera in about 25 minutes. Here I became a bit befuddled, as the (hopeless) directions and map on the hotel website had said nothing about which exit to take off SS96 from Bari/Altamura, and I had not, in fact, expected to be confronted with a choice of entrances to the city. I followed a hunch which, somewhat surprisingly, turned out to be correct.

After bypassing several highway exits, which led to driver protests that we had bypassed the town entirely and would soon be lost in the wilds of Basilicata, we came to one (very small) brown sign marked “sassi.” Veering off the highway, we soon found ourselves driving through a somewhat unremarkable area of a modern town where signposts indicated the directions for many hotels but not ours.

Happily, as we slowed the car so I could ask directions from a passerby, we were approached by one of Matera’s unofficial scooter-driving “entry guides.” I had read about these fellows and, although they are frowned upon by hoteliers and tourist officials, I was all too happy to part with a tip in order to be led to the doorstep of our hotel, in the sassi. No price was mentioned, I merely nodded and off we went, following our guide to the edge of the “new” city and down the steep cobbled lanes that skirts, and then pierces, the Barisano, one of Matera’s two sassi districts and the location of our next hotel, Locanda di San Martino.

We plunged, following our "guide" deeper and deeper into this other-wordly landscape colored in a thousand shades of gray, white and beige, along narrow paths hemmed in by the facades of dwellings that reached far back into the rocky canyon walls, until we halted at a small parking area, near a small sign indicating the back entrance to our hotel. After a quick chat about Osama and Obama, we tipped the “guide” 3 euro, which I considered money very well spent. Finding our hotel in Matera had brought me more anxiety than any other aspect of the trip and I was only too glad to be rid of the car for the next two days. (When we checked in, we were asked about our plans for the car; there is virtually no nearby parking space, but the hotel has an arrangement with the Demasco garage which charged us 25 euro for two nights, including pickup and delivery of the car from and to the hotel; Damasco also offers rental cars)..>>