Italy in May - south from Rome, maybe include Puglia

You might like to start with a book like this one for inspiration, a bit dated, but maybe available in your library or as a cheap used copy on Amazon. https://a.co/d/eKa1Xx7 Back Roads Italy (Eyewitness Travel Back Roads) by DK. I like that it includes detailed maps and photos. You could separately research on the internet the suggested available accommodation and sights for more current information.

Here are the results for a wide open search of the RS website for "Puglia" - no time limitation on travel forum posts:

https://search.ricksteves.com/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=Puglia&button=

While the RS Italy guidebook doesn't cover Puglia, Lonely Planet does. The RS South Italy itinerary may give you some ideas, plus all the info covered within the travel forum.

After you acces a the link you could click on the travel forum filter to limit the results to the past year or two.

We planned a visit to Puglia in March of 2020 but of course that did not happen. So we waited and went for 2 weeks last February-March. My husband even swam in the Adriatic one day, at Monopoli! We joined a Road Scholar tour as we no longer wanted to drive in Italy, but with a car you will have lots of places to explore.

You could take the train from Salerno to Lecce (6 hours, one change at Caserta) and rent your car there. Or if you drive from Salerno, you might include a 2-night stop at Matera.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/matera-italys-rock-hewn-city-weekend

Lecce is not right on the coast but it a beautiful city with a nice Oldtown filled with Baroque buildings, Roman history, and our favorite evening passeggiata in all Italy. Places to visit from there would include Otranto and the cathedral with the Tree of Life mosaic floor:

https://www.mosaicodiotranto.com/en/home-page-english/

https://www.foodismo.it/en/places-to-go/otranto/otranto-quick-guide-on-the-cathedral/

Also Gallipoli, the coastal towns of Monopoli and Polignano al Mare, inland towns in the Val d’Itria with the famous trulli of Alberobello:

https://alberobellotourism.com/

We enjoyed a day spent wandering the oldtown area of Monopoli, with its whitewashed houses and coastal views. Monopoli was one of the places we planned to stay in our 2020 visit, in one of the Albergo Diffuso apartments right in the Oldtown. Check out the photos of the town and the coastline on their website:

https://albergodiffusomonopoli.it/en/homepage

With a car, your Puglia time could include several nights at a masseria, the local equivalent of an agriturismo. This one comes highly recommended by a forum member here;

https://masseriaaprile.it/en

You can find lots more information about these places from a guidebook like the Lonely Planet one, or online. With overnights in Matera, Lecce, Monopoli, and a masseria, you should have plenty to fill your time with history and architecture, beautiful coastal scenery, and excellent local food specialties.

Lecce is a good basefor the southern part of Puglia and yes, it is a long drive back to Rome from there. You could also stay Polignano al Mare for a few nights to see place more of Central and northern Puglia, shortening the drive a bit. We did that a few years ago.

Lecce is a good base for exploring the southern part of Puglia, a region about 200 miles in length. For returning to Rome it would be easier to take the direct train which you can catch in Lecce or Bari.

Thank you so much for the helpful replies! After diving deeper into forum discussions and mapping out ideas, I'm still leaning towards taking the long drive from Salerno to Lecce. However, recent posts have got me thinking about the possibility of dropping the car in Bari and catching a train to Rome.

With 13 nights available, a tentative outline of an itinerary could be:

• Salerno: 3 nights
• Lecce: 3 nights
• Monopoli or Polignano a Mare or other: 3 nights
• Rome: 2 nights

Two nights remain unaccounted for at this stage, which is acceptable as planning continues. Does this itinerary seem reasonable, and do you have any suggestions?

You can drop the car at Bari and take the direct train to Rome. That would be easy.

For your extra 2 nights I would choose either Matera, or a Masseria as I suggested previously, for the quintessential Puglia experience. But that is me; your choice could well be different.

Hi Lola - Matera is the other location we are considering and it could fit nicely between Salerno and Lecce. We are trying to minimize short stays but here are a few options we've been mulling over:

1. Stay in Matera for 2 nights and keep the rest of the itinerary unchanged.
2. Consider visiting Matera as a day-trip from either Monopoli or Polignano a Mare, and then add an extra night there.
3. The other thing we're contemplating (which kind of goes against what I mentioned earlier) is stopping in Matera for just one night on our way to Lecce. It's about a 2h30m drive from Salerno, so we'd arrive in the early afternoon. From Matera to Lecce, it's around a 2h15m drive, which seems doable. This option works well if Matera is a popular day-trip spot.

I'll need to do a bit more research!

I suggest spending your 2 remaining nites in Puglia somwhere. Like much of rural Italy, shops are going to close from 1-5pm, restaurants will close after lunch until 7pm or later. So in Puglia much of what a tourist does is explore and visit in the morning, have lunch, then relax in the afternoon. Since you'll already be in Puglia and may not visit the region again for a long time, I suggest seeing as much as you can while you're there.

This is off the point, so I apologise.

My wife and I are travelling to the Puglia area in September and landing in Bari by train. We are picking up a car and then staying in that region for about 19 days. We are looking for a good map that we can purchase in case our internet connection drops out.
Can any one advise us on the best map to buy please ?
Thanks in anticipation.