South Italy Itinerary Thoughts

On the coast, we loved our ten days in Polignano a Mare with it’s waterfront setting, cliffs and an old town.. Nearby Monopoli is also a good choice.
I am glad we visited Matera but one overnight would be my recommendation. Bari’s old town is wonderful, interesting.

Matera is an interesting town and I think three nights there would be a good way to get over jetlag. Look for accommodation in the Sassi, the area where the old caves have been turned into hotels, B&abs, and restaurants. The RS tour I took stayed at Lacondo di San Martino. All sorts of rooms including some with patios and a Roman-style thermae for rejuvenating swimming. There are a number of similar hotels in the Sassi. Prices seem very reasonable. Two nights might be enough.

We ate at a restaurant near the hotel, it could almost be called a BBQ joint; very rustic with long tables and large platters of grilled meats. There are all sorts of places to eat up in the “new” town..

As if 2015 the tourist office (or perhaps it was a travel agency that looked like a tourist office) in Lecce arranged van transportation to small towns in Puglia. Each full-day trip went to at least four towns and cost about 65 euros at that time. These were not tours, just transportation. There was no schedule; you needed to look at the list of potential tours and tell the staff which you were interested in and which days would work for you. Based on demand, trips were set up. Flexibility was essential, but with a plan to spend a lot of time in Lecce, this could work out for you. I often wished for a bit of extra time at our stops (I had to walk fast to cover the historic areas I wanted to see), but the van trips were a way to visit a lot of small towns without renting a car. Places I was able to visit included Alberobello, Polignano a Mare, Locorotondo, Cisternino, Ostuni, Galatina, Otranto, Gallipoli, Covigliano. There are public buses and/or trains to some of those places, but the bus schedules, at least, are often thin, and there may not be links between the smaller towns that would facilitate visits to multiple places on one day.