A walking holiday in Puglia & Basilicata to hike Southern Italy in 7 days, 6 nights and 5 walks

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 guided tour to hike Puglia and Basilicata.

Day 1 Saturday - we will meet in Bari for a transfer to Matera where we will start our discovery of Basilicata and Puglia with a welcome aperitivo and dinner just to get familiar with the participants.

Day 2 Sunday after enjoying our breakfast at hotel Sant Angelo we will start our day with a guided visit of Matera UNESCO World Heritage whose inhabitants used to live in caves carved out of limestone. After lunch we'll take a walk along the Gravina 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 Monday after breakfast we transfer to Ostuni for a guided tour of the white town with an afternoon trek among centenary olive groves down to a beautiful natural reserve along the coast. Return to the hotel and dinner.

Day 4 Tuesday after breakfast we transfer to Oranto to start our walk from an old roman road and finish it on the adriatic coast where Enea shored and where some of the oldest graffiti of Europe where found. In the afternoon after a siesta, we'll go for a disorganized cultural walk in Otranto to admire, the Aragonese Castello, the Cathedral, the marvelous mosaic (1166) and its tree of life. One of the easterly city of Italy at Roman time Otranto 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 5 Wednesday breakfast and transfer to the starting point. This trekking will take us to the very end of the peninsula, Santa Maria di Leuca , the Finibus Terrae. In the afternoon after a lunch by the ocean, we will visit the village with its Eclectic villas and taste some fine wine at a local vineries.

Day 6 Thursday today a short transfer takes us back to Lecce for a guided cultural hike of the old Baroque town. 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 light lunch and afternoon trek along one of the most spectacular coast line of Salento with a visit to a local Masseria for a cheese taste will ensure some extra activity for the day. Returned to the hotel you will enjoy a real gourmet evening at one of the finest restaurant of Lecce for our ending dinner party.

Day 7 Friday breakfast and departure, transfer to airport or train station.