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Itinerary Help - 23-25 days in Southern Italy

Greetings all!

Early evening on 26 May, 2020, I will be flying into Naples. After a full day of exploring the city, the morning of 28 May , I am renting a car, heading to Puglia, and making Gargano my first stop. From there I plan to head down to Salento via the Adriatic Coast and back up the Ionian Coast. Ideally, I would like to spend 10 days to 2 weeks in Puglia. Though I am eager to tour all of the wonderful towns between the coasts, I am most looking forward to spending many hours on all of the wonderful beaches. With the remaining days of the trip, I am torn with what to do.

One option would be to spend 15ish days in Puglia drive back through Basilicata and spend the remainder of my trip exploring Campania including Amalfi, Pompeii, Vesuvius, and a night or two on one of the islands. If I choose this option, I plan to return the rental car to Naples early and use public and private transit to explore the region to eliminate the frustration of finding parking and the white knuckle driving along the coastal road (I've driven the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia, and imagine it's very similar).

Another option, would be to shorten my time in Puglia to 10ish days, drive south through Calabria, spending a night in the region each way to break up the 7 - 8 hours drive, over to Sicily. Spend a 4 - 5 days there. Head back up through Amalfi, Pompei, Vesuvius, a day trip to an island. For this option, I would keep the car for the entire trip.

A third option would be to drive back to Naples, return the car, shorten the tour of Campania, fly over to Sicily, and rent a car there. With this option, I would fly out of Sicily on 18 June.

Regardless of the option I choose, I plan to fly out of Naples on 19 June.

Here's the deal. I don't want to feel like I am "on the run." My days of traveling at break neck speed are over. I like to take my trips slowly and really explore the area. In addition, I am an elementary school teacher traveling solo on a budget.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Amanda

PS.....I have heard two weeks in Sicily is optimal. I am not opposed to a future trip to be able to spend more time there.

Posted by
26840 posts

Your PS captured the essence of my first thought. I wouldn't do the additional driving to go to the northeast corner of Sicily for just 4 or 5 days. Perhaps if I had 8 - 10 days I'd be OK with targeting half the island, but that would be tough.

My second thought is that you're talking about June, which could be rather hot in southern Italy. Do some research to be sure you're OK with spending 3-1/2 weeks in that climate unless you're confident you'll be on the beaches so much you won't care. The website timeanddate.com has actual, day-by-day weather statistics for Puglia going back 5 years or so. For some reason there's no information available for Lecce (where I stayed, and which I especially like), but the website has data available for a lot of other places in the area. I've linked to Brindisi's data for June 2019.

Posted by
2 posts

Thank you for the input. I am aware it will be hot. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, so I'm acclimated to hot weather. Last year when I was in Portugal during the same time period, it was in the 90's in Atlanta. And yes, my gut tells me to stick to the mainland and reserve Sicily for another trip.