Grand Tour of Puglia and Basilicata

The beginning of your 7 days Gran Tour in Puglia-Basilicata will start at Bari
Airport.

Arrive to the Bari airport, you will be transferred to Alberobello, and get ready to
discover the town with a local guide.

Alberobello is located in the province of Bari, in the beautiful Puglia, near the Murgia hills and the Valle d'Itria. Its historic centre has about 2000 trulli, the characteristic stone houses that make the town famous and that in 1996 were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In ancient times the area of Alberobello was submerged by a thick vegetation, which explains the name given to the town: Alberobello derives from the Latin Sylva Arboris Belli, which means "forest of the tree of war”.

Famous throughout the world for their uniqueness and beauty, the trulli are a valuable example of popular architecture nostrana, witnesses of a time when it was not possible to build fixed dwellings and the inhabitants were forced to ingenuity, creating temporary homes with the help of the stone of the place.

Lunch at the trattoria Trullo d’Oro based in typical dishes of the area.

Departure to our Hotel Wine Resort.

The first existing document in which the Masseria is mentioned is an Inventory of the properties of Giovanni Antonio Orsini, prince of Taranto, written in the first half of the 15th century. In this document, the farm is listed among the assets of the Italo-Greek Abbey of San Vito del Pizzo in Taranto.

At the arrival, and , after relax, you will be taken for a tour of the winery, finishing with a dinner pairing with their best wines.

We left the hotel after breakfast to the beautiful town of Matera.

We will have a private guided tour of Matera with our local guide.
Matera is a city in the region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy.
As the capital of the province of Matera, its original settlement lies in two canyons carved by the Gravina River.
This area, the Sassi di Matera, is a complex of cave dwellings carved into the ancient river canyon. Over the course of its history, Matera has been occupied by Greeks, Romans, Longobards, Byzantines, Saracens, Swabians, Angevins, Aragonese, and Bourbons.

By the late 1800s, Matera's cave dwellings became noted for intractable poverty, poor sanitation, meagre working conditions, and rampant disease. Evacuated in 1952, the population was relocated to modern housing, and the Sassi (Italian for "stones") lay abandoned until the 1980s.

Known as la città sotterranea ("the underground city"), the Sassi and the park of the Rupestrian Churches were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993. In 2019, Matera was declared a European Capital of Culture.
Matera is believed to have been settled since the Palaeolithic (10th millennium BC). This makes it potentially one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world.

The town of Matera was founded by the Roman Lucius Caecilius Metellus in 251 BC who called it Matheola.
After our free time in Matera, we will return to the Hotel, where we will have an early dinner.

Finishing dinner we will move to Massafra for a drink and walking around the old town for a relaxing night.

The uniqueness of Massafra is that, unlike other places where the landscape rock is out of the city, here is appreciated that the steps are living simultaneously and you can have a look from the three bridges linking the two parts of the city .

Is the city that preserves the greatest number of churches and crypts of the Basilian era of Puglia, of which we only report the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Scala, in the end of the homonymous ravine (which is reached by a staircase of 125 steps), San Antonio Abate, San Marco, la Madonna della Candelora, etc.

After breakfast, we will make our move to Locorotondo.

Locorotondo, a city is known for its wines and for its circular structure which is now a historical centre, from which derives its name, which means "Round place". It is located in south-east Murgia, deep in the Itria Valley.

Locorotondo is one of Puglia's prettiest towns with a proudly conserved, easily-walkable centre and a calm, laid-back atmosphere.
The site has been settled since ancient times, as testified by archaeological finds dating between the 3rd and the 7th century BC.

Here you will have a private tour of the town with our local guide.
Lunch at one of the trattoria inside the walls based in typical products.

After lunch we will take you to the Semerano Winery, where you will have a private tour of the cellars and a wine tasting pairing with local products.

The Semeraro family has been dedicated for decades to the art of winemaking in a proper balance between past, present and future; a production reality in which what has remained absolutely and intentionally unchanged is the taste for the ancient gesture in the care of the vineyard and the respect for the environment.

We will be continuous our tour visiting one of the most beautiful town of Italy, Cisternino.
Cisternino, the mysterious and spiritual village of Valle d’Itria, white as the trulli, red as the earth and green as the olive trees.

Overlooking the Valle d'Itria, in the so-called Murgia dei Trulli, belongs to the club of the most beautiful villages in Italy.

The territory of the municipality of Cisternino was inhabited, since the middle-superior Paleolithic, by human nuclei coming from the north of the peninsula or from the Sicilian-African area and that left, on the hills where they fixed their seasonal camps, numerous traces of their life, devoted to hunting and to the collection of spontaneous fruits and tubers.

The current historical centre of Cisternino would be reborn thanks to the Basilian monks in the Middle Ages, they called it Cis-sturnium.

Back to the hotel, relax and dinner at the hotel.

Departure to Taranto after breakfast and Check-out.

Taranto boasts a fascinating diversity of architectural styles, the result of the numerous invasions suffered by the city throughout its history.

The real charm of Taranto, located on the beautiful Ionian Sea, lies in its contradictory nature. On the one hand, it is a city full of fishermen and mussels, on the other, it is a huge naval port, full of warships and submarines.

Its tormented history, a consequence of its strategic position in the Mediterranean, has left a legacy that makes the town well worth a visit.
Allied to this is its unique setting and shape, positioned, as it is, around two large bays: the Mar Grande, where the commercial port is located, and the Mar Piccolo, flanked by the old town centre, where the fishing fleet flourishes and the city can be appreciated in its purest form. Thanks to the presence of these two bays, Taranto is known as "the city of the two seas”.

The old town centre is a fascinating maze of narrow alleyways, many of which only allow access in single file. Echoing with the voices of fishermen returning from their arduous days at sea, these streets provide a charming and unusual setting for visitors.

Private tour and lunch in the old port looking the Mediterranean Sea.

Our Grand tour continuos direction to Vinilia Hotel Wine Resort, where at our arrival and after check-in, you will take for a wine tour.

The whole wine making process will be explained, taste different wines with a delicious tasting dinner.

Vinilia Wine Resort was born by the wise and careful renovation of an ancient mansion dating back to the early '900, built on behalf of the aristocratic family Schiavone of Manduria, with origins between Rome and Manduria.

The winery, Trullo di Pezza, was born in 2012 in Torricella, centre of production of the original, a few km from the town of Manduria.
The farm, built on more than 100 hectares, rests on the farm, the typical rural structure of Puglia dating back to 1830, from which it was named.

After breakfast, you will be taken to Lecce.

Capital of the homonymous province and the cultural fulcrum of Salento (Apulia), Lecce is one of the most beautiful art cities in southern Italy. Known as the “Florence of the South.”

Lecce its ancient Messapian origins and its archaeological ruins, left behind after Roman domination, fuse with the richness and exuberance of the Baroque churches and palazzi (typically from the 1600s).

Lecce is distinguished by the richness and exuberance of the Baroque typically seventeenth-century churches and palaces of the centre, built in the local Lecce stone, limestone very suitable for working with the chisel.

The streets of the centre of Lecce make up part of a museum under the open sky, and one of this museum’s most remarkable exhibits is its splendid Piazza del Duomo, site of the city’s Duomo, Cathedral of Maria Santissima Assunta.

Other grand symbols of Lecce include Palazzo Vescovile, a Renaissance construction with a beautiful and evocative series of loggias.

As in many cities of southern Italy, Lecce is teeming with countless evening engagements for those who want to enjoy the arts and be entertained: from music to theatre, the city of Leccese Baroque is animated by lively social life and a vivacious student population, here to attend the homonymous University. 

You will have a private tour of the city with our local guide, who after the tour, will guide you for a lunch at one of the oldest Osterias in Lecce.

Back to the Hotel for relax and tasting dinner pairing with the best wines of Manduria.

Check-out, breakfast, and departure direction to Ostuni.

Ostuni is the scenic city par excellence, every house is a belvedere, every restaurant is Bellavista, at every window there is a poet looking at the plain below the olive trees that change colour with every wind.

In Ostuni the houses are white, milk and lime, they are white to the point of hurting the eyes, they are white walls, windows, doors, stairs, everything is improbably white.

The territory of Ostuni was already frequented in the Middle Paleolithic (50,000-40,000 years ago) then there was the Neanderthal hunter.

From the second post-war period to now, next to the development of agriculture and of the processing industry related to it (olive oil, almonds, wine), the city has become a renowned tourist destination, managing to enhance its cultural, historical and architectural heritage.

In 2006, it was established on the coast bordering the municipality of Fasano the Regional Natural Park Dune Costiere from Torre Canne to Torre San Leonardo, a protected area of high naturalistic and landscape interest.

Our Local guide will take you through the ancient streets of Ostuni, finishing in a typical trattoria Ostunense.

We will continue to the last stop of our Gran Tour, Polignano al Mare.

Since 2008 Polignano a Mare has always received the Blue Flag, an award given by the Foundation for Environmental Education to European coastal resorts that meet quality criteria related to parameters of bathing water and the service offered in relation to parameters such as cleanliness of the beaches and tourist ports.

The oldest part of the town stands on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Adriatic Sea 33 kilometres south of the capital.

The town has a very ancient history. As in the whole area of south-eastern Bari, also in Polignano have been found traces of human presence, dating back to the Neolithic, in the hamlet of Santa Barbara.

In Polignano al Mare you will have time to relax at the hotel or walking around the streets looking fo the last souvenir.

Dinner at one of the typical restaurant.

Transfer to the aeroport.