The heel — trulli villages, baroque Lecce, burrata at the source, and a coastline of white towns above turquoise water.
Explore → Get Early AccessSea season without the August wall
Trulli, baroque, and two coasts
Essential beyond the Bari-Lecce spine
With cime di rapa, made in doorways
Puglia is the Mediterranean simplified: whitewashed towns, trulli with conical stone roofs, burrata at the source, and two coastlines of clear water. The Salento's baroque and beaches make Italy's heel its most fashionable secret.
Greeks, Byzantines, and Normans shaped the heel; Frederick II left mysterious Castel del Monte; and centuries of olive cultivation made Puglia Italy's olive-oil engine — some groves still bear thousand-year-old trees.
Alberobello's trulli were built dry-stone, legend says, so they could be dismantled quickly when tax inspectors came to count roofed houses. There are more than 1,500 of them, and yes, you can sleep in one.
Four nights on a terrace over Polignano a Mares famous cliffs — mornings with the Adriatic below and Lama Monachile around the corner. The town everyone photographs, from inside the photograph.
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