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Puglia Drivers and itineraries

HI all,

I am looking to hire a driver for just three days in Puglia. Collecting us from the Bari airport, visit Bari, Monopoi, Martina Franca, Poignano a Mare, Ostuni, Cisternino, Lecce, Otranto and ending in Brindisi airport. I do not wish to drive there as I don't read Italian, don't want to waste time with parking which was limited and often challenging with very narrow streets, and I had a bad experience with getting a ticket for restricted parking/driving at a certain time that I didn't understand and had to pay penalties as well. Nightmare. And mostly, I want to relax and enjoy the scenery. I have planned a jam packed time, which ordinarily I would not do. But this is what we have at this time. (We are meeting up with others later to do Alberobello and Matera and some other towns in Puglia.) Can someone pls recommend a driver or tour company who can help me? I would really appreciate. I saw reference to a couple companies on FB but as I cant find any reviews or other comments, thought you well traveled folks would maybe have your finger on this a bit better.

Posted by
7229 posts

Welcome to the forum!

Is renting a car yourself not an option?

From all reports driving in Puglia is fairly easy
That’s what we are planning but we do have experience driving in Italy as well as other European countries

Posted by
6587 posts

@ChristineH, can I ask where you are picking up and dropping your car for Puglia?

Posted by
7229 posts

Have not booked yet but have researched
AutoEurope.com
Pick up Sorrento
Drop Lecce
Automatic

Next spring

Posted by
17562 posts

The OP has stated good reasons why they do not want to drive. But all the towns they mention, except Martina Franca and Otranto, are connected by trains and can easily be reached that way.

We did not want to drive either (have driven without issue in Italy 3x before, and now that my husband is over 75 we have decided to quit while we are ahead).

So we found a Road Scholar tours that visited most of what we wanted to see and more, and we booked an additional 3 nights in Lecce on our own to see the other places. This was our first group tour ever, apart from the guided hiking small group trips we have with adventure travel companies. We were pleasantly surprised with the quality of the a accomodations and the tour in general. Our guide was fantastic and we learned so much from her.

So I would recommend this to others who want to visit Puglia without renting a car.

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/23004/Winter-in-Italy-Puglia-s-Hidden-Gems

Posted by
7229 posts

Just to clarify
OP edited the post after I commented
I would not have questioned the plan if given that info from the start

Posted by
81 posts

Hi,

While this travel was pre-arranged for us, we were really pleased with the service provided by this company: https://www.autoservizisrl.it/english/personalized-services taking us from Otranto to Lecce. That said, I would also consider a mixture of train + driver, depending on your planned home base during those three days. In other words, are you planning on sleeping the same place each night and doing day trips or are you moving from city to city during those days as well? Do you really, really need to go to all these places? (you mentioned that you ordinarily do not plan so much, so just curious as to why so many this trip).

Carrie