I grew up in Italy. Lived there for thirty years. And somehow I never went to Puglia until I had already left. That is the kind of thing that haunts you when you are sitting in Montevideo eating a chivito and pretending it is a panino.
Puglia is the heel of Italy’s boot. The part that kicks. People skip it for Rome, Florence, the Amalfi coast ( and they are wrong ). Puglia is where you go when you are done performing for tourists and just want to exist somewhere beautiful.
Why Puglia
Because it is not trying to impress you. That is the whole point. The buildings in Ostuni are white because they have always been white. The sea is turquoise because that is just what the Adriatic does there. Nobody put up a billboard. Nobody rebranded anything.
I drove through the Valle d’Itria in a rental Fiat that smelled like diesel and regret. Every hill had a trulli village on it, those conical stone houses that look like they were designed by someone who had never seen a roof before but was very committed to trying. I loved them immediately.
The Food Situation
I am not going to do the food paradise thing because every travel writer says that about everywhere. But here is the actual situation:
- Focaccia barese exists and it is not what you think. It is a thick, tomato-drenched slab of joy, not the thin dry stuff you get in Roman airports.
- Orecchiette with ragù is served in places that have been making the same ragù since before Italy was a country. The recipe has not changed because it does not need to.
- Burrata comes from here. Not inspired by. From. Here. If you eat it anywhere else you are eating a tourist version.
- Pane di Altamura is a bread so good it has a DOP certification. A bread. With a certification. Italy in a single sentence.
Ostuni and the White Problem
Ostuni is called La Città Bianca. White city. It is on a hill and it is blinding in the afternoon sun. I showed up with sunglasses and still squinted for two hours.
The old town is a maze. Not a cute tourist maze. An actual, medieval, I-have-been-walking-in-circles-for-forty-minutes maze. Every corner looks like a postcard and every street goes uphill. I found a bar at the top, ordered an espresso, and sat there wondering why I ever left Italy. Then I remembered: taxes. And the traffic in Rome. And my salary at the time.
The Coast
The Adriatic side is where I spent most of my time. Polignano a Mare has these cliffs with houses hanging off them like they are defying physics. Monopoli has a port that looks like someone painted it. Torre dell’Orso has water so clear you can see your own regrets reflected on the sandy bottom.
I swam every day. Sometimes twice. The water in July is warm enough that you do not do the gradual-entry-dance. You just get in. The beach is free in most spots, unlike the Amalfi coast where you pay twenty euros to sit on a chair someone else’s sunscreen has been on.
The Olive Trees
Puglia has sixty million olive trees. Sixty million. Some are two thousand years old. They look like they have survived everything — storms, droughts, people trying to build parking lots over them — and they just keep making olives.
There is a specific kind of silence in an olive grove. It is not actually silent. You hear cicadas and wind and sometimes a distant tractor. But it feels silent. Like the trees are just sitting there, being old, and they do not need to say anything. I walked through one near Cisternino for an hour and did not check my phone once. That might be a personal record.
The Part Where It Breaks Your Heart
Here is the thing about going back to Italy after you have left. Everything is exactly as you remember it and also completely different. The coffee is perfect. The light is golden. The old men are still sitting on the same benches in the same piazzas arguing about the same things.
But you are not part of it anymore. You are a visitor in your own country. You order in Italian but with an accent now. You know which bus to take but you hesitate for a second. You are home and you are not home. That is the heartbreak.
Puglia made it worse because it was new. I did not have memories there to lean on. I had to make new ones, which sounds nice in a travel blog kind of way but actually just makes you feel the passage of time more acutely.
Conclusion
Go to Puglia. Rent a car. Drive through the Valle d’Itria. Eat the focaccia. Swim in the Adriatic. Get lost in Ostuni. Sit under an olive tree and think about nothing for an hour.
And if you are Italian and living abroad, bring tissues. Not because it is sad. Because it is beautiful and you forgot, and remembering is the part that gets you.
:)