Hi! We're planning our second trip to Italy for late March 2020. We are very adventurous travelers who speak a bit of Italian, and our traveling m.o. is usually to rent apartments with nice kitchens, so that we can explore local markets, butchers, etc.
We spent three weeks in Italy several years ago, with two weeks in Rome, two days in Naples, and two days in Greve in Chianti.
We're planning on about 8-10 days this time, with 4 or 5 nights in Rome. We loved our quick glimpse of Naples last time, and we'd like to venture further south. We strongly, strongly prefer not to drive, and we got to Greve in Chianti last time by taking the public bus from Florence.
I think with only a few days to spend, we won't make it as far south as Sicily, but we've been looking into Puglia and Salerno. We're not beach people -- looking for museums, maybe some ruins, but primarily food and wine. Primary requirement: accessible by train or bus.
Thanks!
Posted by
4836 posts
If you are asking about only five days, then sure--you can include something in Puglia or Campania by public transport. If you wanted to spend more time exhaustively exploring the region, then I would recommend a car, but with 4-5 days you only have time for one or two towns anyway, so no worries! I think you might make better use of your time by sticking to the Naples-Salerno region, where the public transit is excellent.
Posted by
Washington DC
27706 posts
I would definitely not try to go to Sicily for the short time you have. Try it when you have 2 weeks or longer. But understand that Sicily's not an island you can fully enjoy from a single base, even with a car.
I used Lecce as my base for seeing a good bit of Puglia in 2015. It's a lovely Baroque city with decent transportation links. Total dependence on public transportation would be somewhat limiting, but on a short visit I don't think you'd come close to running out of places to go. The website of the tourist office lists lots of local guided tours. I took a walking tour I really enjoyed, but it appears they now have a proliferation of more targeted tours rather than a single, generic one.
A major advantage of Lecce is that the tourist office also organizes shared-van transportation to a bunch of small towns--the sort of places that are impossible to combine on a single day via public transportation. At the time of my visit there wasn't a fixed schedule. You needed to check with the tourist office to see what was scheduled (often just one day ahead). Flexibility was key, because some days there might not be a trip running. I just told them I was interested in any of the full-day trips (typically visiting 4 to 6 small towns during the year of my visit).
These are not tours; they are just transportation to a series of towns, with the driver (very limited English, in my experience) pointing you in the direction of the historic center and telling you when to be back at the van for departure. There are more traditional guided tours as well, but the transportation-only deal worked well for me by letting me see a lot of the small towns in a short amount of time. True, I would like to have had a bit more time at each stop, because I'm obsessive about trying to walk every historic street. At a glance, it seems as if they have reduced the number of stops made each day, which would allow for somewhat more time in each town.
I don't see the cost on the website linked above, but I thought it was very reasonable at the time. I think it fell somewhere in the 45-65 euro range for a full day of zipping around.
Note that one of the route options includes Matera, the very interesting Basilicata town with cave dwellings.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17253 posts
Take a look at Matera, the cave village. We are going to spend three nights there in March. Some of the Sassi ( cave) hotels offer rooms with kitchen facilities. It is accessible by train from Naples ( via Bari) or by a train bus combination which is shorter, but I cannot recall the name of the town where you transfer from bus to train.
Posted by
Italy
3812 posts
I cannot recall the name of the town where you transfer from bus to train.
Salerno. Just enter Matera Centrale as arrival/departure station both on trenitalia.com and italotreno.it and the 2 sites will show where you have to change and how.
In Puglia there are train and buses, unfortunately they are still run by many local/private/almost failed regional companies. 9 times out of 10 there is a way to go from X to Y by tp, the problem is finding who runs the mean of transport that links X and Y.
With the relevant exception of Trenitalia trains, On Sundays you'll find that only buses run and on a reduced schedule; the demand from locals is too low to use the trains.
Posted by
Saint Paul, Minnesota
1538 posts
You could fly from Rome to Brindisi and then take a train to Lecce --- the exteriors of the Romanesque churches are fantastic and so is the food. Roman ruin right in the center of town. Cooking classes and tours from The Awaiting Table: https://awaitingtable.com/cookery-courses/day-courses/. Be sure to stay inside the walls of the old town. With more time and a car you could go to sooooooo many great places in Puglia, but Lecce all on its own could keep you busy and happy for a week.
If not Lecce, then I agree with Matera as a suggestion.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17253 posts
Thank you Dario, for the name. Salerno. Now I don’t have to rummage through all my trip notes. I will remember it now.