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Puglia without a car? Good town for home base

Husband and I looking to travel to Puglia June 2015 and was looking to see if we will be able to get around via train
Was thinking of using Lecce as home base and looking to visit Locorotondo, Ostuni, Otranto Alberobello
Perhaps Matera and Tremilii Islands
Is this doable without a car ?
Also is Lecce good home base?

Despite living in NY we have never rented car when visiting Italy having relied on trains/buses or drivers but that was visiting
main cities and Sicily

Appreciate the feedback and help from fellow travelers

Posted by
2165 posts

We did Puglia without a car in 2009. It depends on how long you have there. We stayed three nights in Vieste and four nights each in Trani, Matera, Alberobello and Lecce, taking day trips from all of them. We went to Locorotondo (one of our favorites) and Otranto as well as Taranto. The only place that really couldn't be reached easily from any of our locations was Ostuni, and I regret that we did not make it there. The public trans can be time-consuming, occasionally frustrating, but the trains and buses do go most places!

Posted by
11613 posts

Puglia is a big region, Lecce is far south and the Tremiti Islands are in the northern part. You might consider two bases.

Matera is in Basilicata, slow train to and from Bari, or bus. Trains are more frequent but leave/arrive at the station adjacent to Bari Centrale.

Posted by
50 posts

Hi Stephanie, my senior (not high school!) friends and I are also planning a trip to Matera and Puglia.
I read a good trip report about a woman and her husband (who are seniors...no, not high school!!....and they did it all by trains, buses for one month. I read it on Fodor's. It is entitled, One Month in Puglia and Matera, and it was written by Dai. It is very explicit and long but informative about the villages, trains, buses, hotels and restaurants.

You have to go to the "Europe" forum, then choose "Italy" and you will see the list of trip reports especially the above mentioned on Puglia and Matera.

Have a great trip.

Mary

Posted by
2118 posts

We visited the Adriatic Coast (including Puglia and Matera) in October 2012, mostly by public transportation, and visited all of the places you mentioned except the Tremiti Islands. We stayed in Trani (4 nights), took a train to Bari and onward to Matera (2 nights), picked up a car there and stayed at Masseria Montenapoleone near Pezze di Greco (6 nights) (visiting Ostuni, Alberobello and Locorotondo from there), then returned the car in Brindisi and took the train to Lecce (6 nights).

Matera is a must-see. Easy to get to via public transportation. I think 2 nights might be enough here. The masseria was our favorite stop. A masseria is similar to an agriturismo .... located in the countryside. Quiet, beautiful. Ours had a pool and fabulous food. If you can work up your nerve to drive, it makes it a lot easier to see Ostuni and the Trulli villages with a car. We also enjoyed driving to the coast, seeing Monopoli and Polignano a Mare -- gorgeous little seaside village. Driving was pretty easy; a GPS is highly recommended, as many of the little roads are not marked. There's a great highway that runs along the coast; once you get to the little towns, there's hardly any traffic to deal with.

We found Lecce to be a frustrating home base. Everything in town -- all shops, restaurants, offices -- closes around 2 pm daily. It becomes a ghost town. Shops start reopening around 6 pm but restaurants don't open until 8 pm. You can't even get a pizza or sandwich or a piece of cheese between 2 pm and 8 pm. So you have to plan carefully and have snacks in your room in case you are hungry after returning from a day trip. We took a day trip to Otranto, and another to Gallipoli. Gallipoli was our favorite. Gorgeous little town. I wished we had stayed here for a few days. Another enjoyable outing from Lecce was an escorted visit to two wineries, with a company called Experience Path. They can set you up for wine tastings, cooking classes, bicycle trips ... whatever. Highly recommended.

Public transportation this far south in Italy is not as well organized as in the more heavily touristed areas. In the little Lecce train station, there are 3 widely-separated ticket windows, depending on who runs the train you want to take, which you of course don't know so there is a bit of running back and forth. For our trip to Gallipoli, the ticket vendor was in a tobacco shop at the end of the station. We luckily bought a round-trip ticket and took note of the schedule, because when returning around 4 pm, the Gallipoli train station was unmanned (no ticket office at all) and there were no signs indicating train arrival/departure times. Not a lot of English spoken down here either, so we weren't positive we were on the correct train back to Lecce until we were about half-way there. That being said, it all added to the adventure of the outing.

Puglia is absolutely gorgeous, with far less tourists than you'll find elsewhere in Italy. The food is wonderful. I think you'll have a great time. Brush up on your Italian, and consider staying in a masseria. Have fun!

Posted by
2165 posts

The best information we found for public transportation was in the back of the Lonely Planet Puglia/Basilicata guide.