Italy hotel booking - filcoo Italy hotels, hotel Italy, bed and breakfast Italy, bed&breakfast Italy, b&b Italy, Italy travel guide

Italy bed&breakfast and hotels: Reserve your accomodation online

Home

Edit & Cancel booking

Support

Hotels in Italy

Italy Travel Guide

Home > Italy Travel Guide > Puglia Travel Guide

Puglia Travel Guide

PUGLIA CITIES TRAVEL GUIDES

Lecce

THINGS TO TRY

Puglia Hotels
Events

USEFUL LINKS

Links

Introduction

Puglia is the heel of Italy's boot. For centuries it was a strategic province, colonised, invaded and conquered by just about every major power, from the Greeks through to the Spanish. Today, the region stands out architecturally from the classical, Romanesque, burlesque and Gothic styles to be found elsewhere in Italy. Puglia (Apulia), rarely visited by English-speaking travelers, is Italy's elegant stiletto heel. The southern reaches of the Salentine Peninsula are virtually surrounded by the immemorial waters of the Adriatic on the east, the Ionian Sea to the south east, and the Gulf of Taranto, across which lies the Region of Calabria. In the mountainous north, Puglia is bordered, in clockwise fashion, by Basilicata, Campania, and Molise. Albania is a mere 80 kilometers (50 miles) across the Adriatic.

While the official language is standard Italian, among themselves people in different areas will speak dialects not heard elsewhere. In the north, a version of Neapolitan Italian, in the far south, a Sicilian variation, elsewhere dialects that are heavily Greek or Albanian in flavor. Puglia offers tourists more than 800 km of coastline, surrounded by vast expanses of wheat fields, gardens, olive groves and vineyards, all flourishing under the glorious Mediterranean sun.

History and Culture

Originally settled by early italic tribes, Puglia was colonized by the Greeks during the 5th and 6th centuries BC. However, as with the rest of southern Italy, it was subjugated by the Romans in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC. The Goths, then the Lombards held sway in their turn, followed by the Byzantines, then the Normans.

For a time, the Puglian City of Melfi was the capital of the Norman territories, but when Robert Guiscard conquered Sicily to establish the Kingdom of Sicily, with Palermo as its capital, Puglia fell into provincial status, a status it retained when the Kingdom of Sicily transmogrified into the Kingdom of Naples.

Ultimately, during the 12th and early 13th centuries, Puglia was absorbed by the Holy Roman Empire. Then the Turks, and Venetians had their turn. Finally, Puglia was incorporated into the modern state of Italy, in 1861.

Places in the Region of Puglia

As you explore Puglia's cities and towns, and outlying areas, you will encounter Greek and Roman ruins, paleo-christian ruins, and public and ecclesiastical buildings done in every major style from Romanesque, to Gothic to Renaissance. You will even encounter a local architectural style called “barocco leccese”, a fanciful, almost hyperbolistic strain of the Baroque, found in Lecce and other towns and cities.

In Puglia, and no where else, you will also find a very peculiar type of building - the trullo - a beehive-shaped, whitewashed, mortarless structure made of stone, usually used as barns in farming areas within the Val d'Itria, but also used as housing in fairly large-scale communities. The original Trulli date back hundreds, if not thousands of years. Alberobello's old town is one of the best places to see trulli, and is a great draw for tourists. Today, many of the trulli have been turned into shops to cater for every tourist whim. You can however, arrange to see inside houses that are still lived in. Each house starts off with just one or two domes, then as the family grows, so do the number of domes; an ideal way to expand a family home. Walls of a trullo can be up to 2m (6.56ft) thick, and no two trulli are the same, each is built individually by hand.

Bari, the capital city of Puglia, welcomes you with its extraordinary heritage of art, enclosed within the labyrinth of the streets of the old city. The most important of Bari's monuments is the basilica of Saint Nicolas, an outstanding example of Romanesque architecture which served as a model for many cathedrals in the region.

Near the coast of Brindisi arises the white expanse of Ostuni, high on a ridge, looking out over an infinite green carpet of olive trees. Today a famous tourist center, it possesses an incredible heritage of baroque palaces nestled within a weave of white houses. Even further south, we find the ancient town of Lecce, often called “Florence of the South” for the incomparable beauty of its churches and monuments.

From Lecce begins magical Salento, the heel of the boot of Italy, a remote area containing unique landscapes and traditions, and a unique and distinctive dialect, “Griko”, a language very similar to ancient Greek.

The city of Otranto, is the easternmost city in Italy, protected by the powerful Aragonese castle and overlooking an emerald sea. On the Ionic Sea, we see Gallipoli, the Greek Kallipolis (beautiful city), constructed on an island and connected to the mainland by bridge. Another true pearl is Nard, with a piazza considered to be the most beautiful in Salento.

The fifth major town in Puglia is Taranto, on the Ionic coast. Taranto was the most powerful of the ancient Greek colonies in Italy. The city is worth a visit for the National Archeological Museum, a rich collection of the ancient art of Magna Grecia. North of Taranto is one of the most unusual landscapes in Italy: the ravines. These are canyons with limestone walls which since medieval times have provided shelter for dozens of rocky settlements. Today you can visit these homes and churches made of rock, festooned with ancient frescoes. The best-known city in this area is Massafra, but Laterza, Castellaneta and Ginosa are also spectacular.

Events

St. Orontius - August 24-26 - Lecce
Lecce celebrates its patron saint, St Oronzo, from the 24th to the 26th of August. On this occasion the town puts on its Sunday best: processions, illuminations and fireworks.

Links

Lecce's Tourism Board

Offical site

Transport

Transport

Transport

Transport

Transport

Transport

Transport

Transport

Hotels in Puglia
Hotel L'Abbate Single room - From 73€ Double room - From 103€ Visit hotel page
Park Hotel Bocci Single room - From 42€ Twin room - From 68€ Triple room - From 93€ Visit hotel page
Hotel Villaggio Nemo Single room - From 45€ Double room - From 45€ Visit hotel page
Aurora Doppia uso singola - From 50€ Twin room - From 60€ Triple room - From 80€ Visit hotel page
Hotel Leon Single room - From 48€ Twin room - From 69€ Triple room - From 89€ Visit hotel page
Vico del Sole Double room - From 55€ Quadruple room - From 100€ Visit hotel page
Hotel Citta' Bianca Single room - From 45€ Double room - From 70€ Triple room - From 94.5€ Visit hotel page
Lo Scalo Double room - From 180€ Quadruple room - From 85€ Visit hotel page
Cavallino Apartment - From 60€ Apartment - From 80€ Apartment - From 90€ Visit hotel page
Hotel Villa Single room - From 55€ Double executive - From 98€ Visit hotel page
La Cisura Double room - From 40€ Apartment - From 50€ Visit hotel page
Villa Rodogallo Double room - From 100€ Suite - From 130€ Suite - From 150€ Visit hotel page
Mirage Twin room - From 65€ Family - From 120€ Visit hotel page
Hotel Baia Dei Trabucchi Single room - From 40€ Double room - From 80€ Triple room - From 110€ Visit hotel page
Sosta a levante Double room - From 60€ Visit hotel page
Relais Le Jardin Logis D'italia Single room - From 55€ Double room - From 80€ Visit hotel page
Villa Delle Palme Twin room - From 56€ Triple room - From 78€ Visit hotel page
Arca Hotel Suite - From 85€ Triple room - From 83€ Quadruple room - From 103€ Visit hotel page
La Piazzetta Apartment - From 30€ Apartment - From 45€ Apartment - From 60€ Visit hotel page
Villino Turchese Apartment - From 50€ Visit hotel page
La Corte Double room - From 60€ Visit hotel page
Hotel Magnolia Double room - From 70€ Visit hotel page
Centro Storico Lecce Suite Astore - From 80€ Visit hotel page
Parco delle Querce Single room - From 58€ Double room - From 90€ Triple room - From 120€ Visit hotel page
De Nittis Single room - From 40€ Double room - From 55€ Triple room - From 65€ Visit hotel page
Hotel Fini Double room - From 50€ Triple room - From 65€ Quadruple room - From 80€ Visit hotel page
Hotel Palazzo del Corso Single room - From 130€ Double room - From 155€ Visit hotel page
Masseria Refrigerio Single room - From 50€ Double room - From 70€ Triple room - From 80€ Visit hotel page
Masseria L'Ovile Single room - From 40€ Double room - From 70€ Visit hotel page
Piazza Sant' Oronzo Twin room - From 70€ Family Rooms - From 100€ Visit hotel page
Palazzo Rollo Twin room - From 75€ Visit hotel page
Casa dei Mercanti Apartment - From 55€ Apartment - From 70€ Superior Suite - From 110€ Visit hotel page
Tenuta Don Raffaele Twin room - From 50€ Visit hotel page
Costa Single room - From 35€ Double room - From 60€ Triple room - From 70€ Visit hotel page
Sigismondo Castromediano Double room - From 50€ Quadruple room - From 70€ Visit hotel page
Atlantide Apartment - From 60€ Visit hotel page
La Scisa Apartment - From 70€ Visit hotel page
Lecce Salento Single room - From 45€ Double room - From 68€ Triple room - From 85€ Visit hotel page
Mammasisi Single room - From 60€ Double room - From 80€ Twin room - From 80€ Visit hotel page
Azzurretta Doppia uso singola - From 40€ Twin room - From 60€ Triple room - From 75€ Visit hotel page
Corte Altavilla Suite - From 125€ Visit hotel page
Sant' Eligio Relais Single room - From 95€ Twin room - From 130€ Triple room - From 160€ Visit hotel page
Stille Salento Double room - From 65€ Visit hotel page