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Puglia is home to a wealth of world-class historical monuments contained within its small region, so we can cover a lot of ground with ease. From our two hotel bases, both of which are handpicked for their unique Pugliese charm and hospitality, we’ll take day trips to explore the plethora of sites and flavors on this sundrenched coast. Our culinary tour gives you a wide range of the distinctive flavors that Puglia offers. You’ll enjoy tasty street foods, rustic family meals and memorable feasts at restaurants and eateries where locals go – rather than at tourist spots. You’ll meet farmers, artisan producers and winemakers who’ll share their trade secrets with you. We’ll taste a bread so unique it has its own DOP (protected designation of origin) and we’ll visit one of the oldest olive oil estates in Italy. You’ll even learn from local nonnas how to make pasta shapes specific to Puglia. Tucked in between the incredible food and wine experiences will be sojourns to Puglia’s renowned art and cultural attractions, including two UNESCO World Heritage sites: the spectacular ancient Sassi cave houses of Matera and the intriquing trulli of Alberobello.
We start the morning with a walking tour of the enchanting old city of “Bari Vecchia” with our private guide. We’ll visit Basilica di San Nicola, home of the 900-year-old crypt of this famous saint, a.k.a Santa Claus. We’ll walk down the famous “via delle Orecchiette” where you can chat with the matriarchs who still make this pasta by hand outside their homes. Then we’ll head to a square where locals go for Bari’s legendary street food, to enjoy a private cooking demo and lunch. You’ll taste panzerotti, focaccia barese, orecchiette, tiedda barese and more, made just for us by the local street-food maven Carmela. After lunch, we drive to Lecce, an elegant town known as “Florence of the South”. We’ll spend three nights here at the elegant five-star Risorgimento Resort smack in the middle of Lecce’s world-renowned Rococo and Baroque monuments. After settling into your room, we’ll enjoy dinner at the hotel rooftop restaurant (weather permitting)overlooking the historic center of Lecce for a dinner of delicious local specialties.
This morning, we embark on a walking tour around Lecce’s historical center, an open-air museum just steps from our hotel. You’ll see sites that span 2,000 years of history as we visit churches and noble palaces, such as Piazza Sant’Oronzo, Basilica of Santa Croce and the Roman Amphitheatre. Lunch will be in the main piazza at a locanda where you’ll taste delicacies found only in Lecce: rustici, puccia (a unique flat bread filled with meats, cheeses or vegetables), and pitta di patate. We’ll cap our repast with the acclaimed pasticciotto (custard-filled tarts). After lunch, we visit workshops where master craftsmen make the delicate, intricate papier-mâché figurines for which Lecce has been famous since the 17th century. Their skills and techniques will amaze you. Then we drive to Otranto, a charming harbor town at the eastern-most tip of Italy overlooking the turquoise Adriatic Sea. We tour the town’s cathedral where you’ll see a spectacular 12th century mosaic floor that depicts stories from the Old Testament. As the sun sets over the Adriatic, we gather around a farm table at a local agriturismo, to feast on their estate-grown Pugliese specialties and the freshest seafood.
DAY 3: CHEESE MAKING EXPERIENCE AND COOKING CLASS WITH NONNA MARIA
We’ll head out in the morning to visit a local cheese masseria to learn how to make burrata and mozzarella. We’ll then go meet a Pugliese nonna in San Cataldo who will teach you how to handroll traditional pastas of the Salento area. You’ll learn to shape sagne ncannulate, orecchiette and minchiareddhi. We’ll lunch on the pasta prepared in class along with side dishes made with homegrown vegetables from the nonnas’gardens.
We’ll have time in the late afternoon to do some shopping in the center of Lecce. On our last evening at Lecce, we’ll be special guests of a noble family at their 16th century noble palazzo. They’ve invited us to a private tour, as well as aperitivo and dinner where traditional dishes from this Baroque city will be center stage.
After breakfast we pack our bags to change hotels, but before we arrive at our next resort in Fasano we have a full day ahead of us. First, we visit one of Puglia’s most renowned wineries. We’ll stroll around their vineyards, learn about Puglia indigenous grape varietals and enjoy an insider’s guide to their winemaking process. We’ll taste their wines paired with each course of our lunch at the winery. Next is olive oil. Puglia is one of the largest producers of olive oil in Italy and home to some of the country’s oldest monumental olive groves. We head north after lunch to visit one of them. The olive trees here are magnificent works of sculpture, some dating back 3,000 years. We’ll visit an ancient underground mill where olive oil has been produced for thousands of years and meet the family for whom olive oil has been a way of life for generations. You’ll enjoy tasting the organic olive oils made at the estate and learn what gives them their unique flavors. We check in to our masseria Montenapoleone in Pezze di Greco . The resort’s charmingly restored farm houses will be our home for the next four nights. We unwind, lounge at the pool and when we’re ready, relax over aperitivo and dinner here.
We begin our day with a culinary treat unique to the Valle d’Itria area — a feast at a “barbequing butcher” – in the town of Martina Franca. Our experience starts with a visit to the farm where the hogs pasture. We’ll meet the artisan producer of exceptional pork salumi cured in a typical Pugliese style. You’ll get to taste their signature cured meats, including the coveted regional specialty, Capocollo di Martina Franca DOP. Then we’ll experience a “barbequing butcher” lunch extravaganza in the gardens of the farm. We’ll walk off lunch around the charming narrow streets of Martina Franca filled with Baroque architecture. In the afternoon, we visit the UNESCO World Heritage site of Alberobello, a magical town that’s home to more than 1,000 trulli, intriguing huts with conical un-mortared stone roofs that date back to the 14th century. We’ll explore this town and learn about why and how these dwellings were built, and what the cryptic symbols painted on the roof cones mean. Later in the evening we’ll head to the blindingly white town of Ostuni. After a walk through the winding streets made of stone, we will sit and enjoy dinner at a restaurant featuring local dishes.
Today after breakfast we travel inland to Altamura. Altamura is renowned for having the very best bread in all of Italy – Pane di Altamura DOP — made of durum wheat, with a distinctive yellow crumb. We’ll see how they make this world-famous bread and, of course, taste it. Then we head across the border to Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage site where a “city” of Sassi cave dwellings were dug deep inside rocky cliffs during the Paleolithic era, and lived in to this day! We’ll stop for lunch at a local restaurant where our meal will be paired with Aglianico del Vulture,Basilicata’s famous red wine, followed by a walking tour of the stunning Sassi caves. We’ll make our way back to our masseria for pizza and other traditional dishes baked in their wood-burning oven.
After breakfast,later in the morning we head to Polignano a Mare. Along with our guide we will walk through the alleys of Polignano a Mare, discovering the history of the city. The landscape from the terraces on the sea will be sure to leave you breathless. After our morning walk we’ll stop for lunch at a seafood restaurant overlooking the Adriatic sea. We head back to our masseria where you’ll have time to relax at the pool. We end our tour with a farewell dinner at our masseria in the vineyards for a farm to table dinner along with a demo class where you can make your own panzerotti. The evening will be filled with music and dancing.
After breakfast we’ll have a group transfer to the Bari airport. Our shuttle will have you at the airport by 10 am.
**Sequence of activities and excursions may vary. The final itinerary will be given to each guest on arrival day.
