A walking tour of Puglia & Basilicata - 7 unique country walks to hike Southern Italy in 10 days & 9 nights

A journey between Matera, Lecce and Otranto to experience, at a different speed, southern Italy art, nature and people.

On this walking holiday between Puglia and Basilicata, hiking olive groves, breathtaking costal trails, old villages and vineyards, you will explore a corner of Southern italy through a series of new and extraordinary walks, completely off the beaten tracks.

Puglia and Basilicata offer all the excitement of a unique walking adventure, and the opportunity to explore a past rich of history, art and traditions, offering breathtaking nature, walks along forests, extinct volcanos, lakes and ravines. A trip where history explains art and art tells you the history of these regions, where human traces and art go back to the time when Puglia & Basilicata were emerged from the sea. Originally populated by ancient people coming from Anatolia, and Crete, both important Roman districts, Basilicata & Puglia with their Natural and Archaeological Parks, Dolmen and crypts, rural churches and frescos, food and gastronomy make this walking holidays in southern Italy both unique and unmissable.

A self guided tour to hike Puglia and Basilicata,
sample program. All tours can be custom made.

Day 1 & 2 Matera
Your walking holiday starts in Matera with a welcome aperitivo, a briefing and the first guided walk just to get familiar with the town of stones, UNESCO World Heritage whose inhabitants used to live in caves carved out of limestone. The second day, after breakfast you'll take the first country walk enjoying a guided trek along the Gravina of Matera, where more than 120 rupestrian churches with Byzantine frescos make this place unique and spectacular. Afternoon rest and dinner in one of the many restaurant of Matera, will conclude our day.

Day 3 Alberobello - Itria Valley
after breakfast a short private transfer to Alberobello will let you enjoy your second country walk and explore the Itria valley characterized by a flourishing vegetation where olive trees, white trulli (dry-stone houses with conical roofs made of lapidary stones) and local stone fortresses are scattered around.

Day 4 Locorotondo & Martina Franca
today's walks will take you to the South-Eastern side of the "Murge dei Trulli". A day to explore and walk along extremely narrow roads, with sharp bends and dead ends, tall narrow houses painted in their classic white colour, handsome buildings in baroque style. A visit to the local winery might add a gourmet touch to the day, for those interested in tasting the "Locorotondo", the famous white wine, considered one of the most promising quality white wines in the region.

Day 5 Ostuni
breakfast and one more short transfer before your next walk will take you to Ostuni the white town. OstuniÕs charm lies in the characteristic white walls of the houses in the old town. In fact, all the houses in the historic centre are only painted using white lime paint. This feature led to the town being called "the white town", the queen of the olive groves" and the "city of the crib".

Day 6 & 7 Lecce
two days and two extraordinary walks to explore the Florence of Southern Italy Lecce, its beautiful surrounding country side and wineyards. Discovering the old town centre of Lecce, with your private cultural walk will be an exciting adventure among the most refined Baroque-style items and palaces of Puglia, where the architecture of portals, monuments and clerical buildings is characterised by some of the finest stone lacework. The city was built on the site of the ancient Roman town of Lupiae, was contested by the Byzantines, Lombards, and Saracens, elevated to a countship by the Normans and passed to the Aragonese kings of Naples in the in 1463. With its cathedral, the Basilica of Santa Croce, Churches and fine Baroque buildings is well known as the Florence of the south. A trek along the wineyrds surrounding Lecce with a private wine tasting tour will ensure some extra activity for your second day.

Day 8 the Adriatic coast
today a short transfer by a typical local train will take you to the starting point. After an optional visit to the local museun and crypts to admire some unique wall paintings, this unique custom walk toward the adriatic coast will take you to the next hotel, not far from where Enea shored and where some of the oldest graffiti of Europe where found.

Day 9 Otranto
after breakfast you'll start the last trekking that will take you to Otranto. In the afternoon after a siesta, you might take a walk to discover and admire the town center, the Aragonese Castello and the Cathedral with the marvelous floor mosaic (1166) and its tree of life. Otranto is one of the easterly city of Italy at Roman time, it was more important than Brindisium as a point of embarkation for the East a charming pearl that give life to the words of Roberto Cotroneo: Otranto is "a collapsed star which includes the entire universe, where there is daily life and history, where the years do not go by and everything seems to interpenetrate, where it is easy for ghosts to speak to you in the streets, and where everyone knows they are in an unusual place, where time curves back on itself, it is not a straight line, and curving it withdraws into itself".

Day 10 Departure
breakfast and transfer to Lecce for train or airport connections.