Southern Italy

Pre COVID we spent a short week in Lecce which was a wonderful base for exploring Puligia. Loved that part of Italy and the coast is beautiful and at that time the area was not busy in October. Try going to the “End of the World” or the end of the heel. As you would expect, the Italians have built a church there. It is more intense than Florence or Milan, was in the main square of Lecce and looked over at a family who appeared to be in an argument. Not so, they were just trying to figure out where to have dinner. People were kind and generous.

Late March could be nice in Puglia or Sicily. It should still be quiet in both places but hopefully there will already be warm sunny days, perhaps more so in Sicily since Puglia can get the northeasterly winds. Here are some ideas for Puglia: https://slowtravelitalyspain.blogspot.com/2024/03/why-i-love-puglia.html

The Cilento peninsula south of Salerno and Paestum is quiet remote, but beautiful. A car is recommended.

Sicily would be on my list for late March.
Do you want to drive or stick to public transport?

Thanks for all the great responses! I'm beginning to think that two weeks won't be enough.

We're open to renting a car for part of our time. We usually have one when we're in Tuscany and it really opens up the possibilities for exploration. It all depends on if we end up doing a more city focused trip or if we decide to include more small towns.

That works well for all of southern Italy, a little bit of city time bookending exploring more rural areas with a car. I’d feel a bit hemmed in by two weeks for Sicily—i’d consider doing either west or east if you don’t have flexibility. It’s a nice amount of time for Puglia.

I focused on Southern Italy in November 2024--Amalfi, Maratea, Tropea, Matera, Lecce, Polignano al Mare and then Naples. Solo, 70+. F and only used public transpo. In Lecce and PAM visited lots of the towns in the area, Alberobello, Ostuni, Otranto, Monopoli, etc and if you have a car have great options. I gave the heel a good viewing.

That sounds like a fantastic trip, I'll have to look those towns up.

We found Matera to be a most intriguing and interesting place. I would definitely consider Matera.

You’ll always have choices and decisions. The advice we got here 15 to 18 months ago led is to change our three week plan to a 30-day plan. It also led us to decide to take the RS Sicily tour (11 days and we added one day at each end).

That left us with 2-1/2 weeks for the heel and shin of the boot … 12 days or so in Puglia, a 3-day trip by rental car from Lecce to Matera to the Cilento and then we turned in the car at the start of a 4-night stay in Naples.

Southern Italy is culturally and historically quite different from Rome and North. More influences of Ancient Greece, and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), which outlasted the western Roman Empire by close to 1,000 years. Lots of influences from the Arab world and Spain. The Renaissance did not reach the south so much.

We were there for the month of April 2024. The weather was kinda warm in Sicily; less so in Puglia, the Cilento and Naples, though our last day at the end of April was perfetto. Sunny and 72 F.

We went to many of the towns and cities mentioned by others who have already responded, but we skipped the Amalfi Coast. Like I say, choices. You can never do it all.

Our TR is at https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/southern-italy-30-days-three-ways-to-travel. (The 3 ways to travel were RS Tour, “self-guided” bike tour and “on or own.”)

The advice we got for Naples has some useful suggestions that you may appreciate, particularly from acraven. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/naples-and-environs-suggestions-per-favore

Best wishes and Buon Viagge.

Thank you so much to everyone who's taken the time to answer! It will be hard to narrow it down to two weeks of options. (one of us is a teacher so we are pretty limited in our dates outside of summer). It's a good thing there's always an option to come back again.