Italy, somewhere new - recommendations please.
 

I need to consult various guidebooks, but I am after ideas. I've been to Italy numerous times and love it. I've done Rome, Tuscany, Campania and Sicily quite well, and visited Lombardy (Bergamo and lake Iseo) and Venice,

I have a couple of weeks at the beginning of October, so am looking for new areas to explore. I'm assuming the North (Milan, Turin, the Veneto) would probably be getting quite cool at this time of year.
I love walking, museums, architecture. A beach location would be good, but not essential (I have swum in the Med in October in both Campania and Sicily). I have limited Italian, but normally enough to get by.

I'm thinking of Sardinia or possibly Puglia (Maybe based in Lecce) but all suggestions welcome.

What about Le Marche? Very few English speaking tourists, lovely villages, wineries, the seaside, Urbino...

We have spent about a month over two years there and have fallen in love with it.

If you click my name you can find our trip reports.

My pics are here
https://flickr.com/photos/[email protected]

We also enjoyed a week in puglia.

Pics are here
https://flickr.com/photos/[email protected]

Enjoy your planning!

Loved Puglia - we were there late September and had fabulous weather. We didnt go on beaches, but we saw people on some of the beaches. The whole area was very uncrowded.

We're heading to puglia in September, also considered LE Marche.

Lazio? I had a lovely stay based at Lake Bolsena a few years ago, and you can visit places like Orvieto and Viterbo.

Puglia, either stay in a masseria and do lots of walks, biking or stay in Lecce and book into a B&B with good roof space so you can breakfast while looking across the roofs.

Puglia is easy to get to, fly Roma to Brindisi or Bari and either catch the bus to Lecce or hire a car. If you are doing the Masseris stay then you need to hire a car.

have you looked at Santa Margherita? You can visit a small fishing village called Camogli or take the ferry to Portofino. Cinque Terre is a train ride away as well.

I think Piedmont is worth your consideration even at that time of year - will be the tail end of harvest season and it is some of the best food / wine Italy has to offer.

This article might help with your decision making (or complicate things because it all looks good!)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/de...taly-part-two/

Jamikins, last week we spent a few days in northern Le Marche/southern Emilia Romagna, near Pennabilli. Some of the photos in your Marche album are from that area. (Beautiful photos, by the way!) I see you have several photos of San Leo on page 3 of the album, but not identified by name. (Hillside castle, for example, is San Leo.)

The scenery around there is some of the best I've seen in Italy. I don't think Tuscany has anything to beat it. This is the part of Italy where Tuscany, Umbria, Le Marche, and Emilia Romagna come together. In fact, a number of your pictures in the Marche album are actually from those other three regions. San Leo was in Le Marche until a few years ago, but they seceded and joined Emilia Romagna.

I took around 5 jillion photos, and hope to get them sorted and posted somewhere before long.

Le Marche is an excellent idea for someone who's looking for a new Italian destination. It's definitely not overrun with tourist, and most of those there are would be Italians. The food is excellent. It was a border region in the middle ages, and heavily involved in the Guelph/Ghibelline wars. As a result, there are so many castles that you can hardly turn around without bumping into one.

It's not easy to get around in Le Marche without a car, and you won't find a lot of people who speak much English.

Having visited all of the above areas mentioned, the Puglia area was one that we found intriguing. We stayed in Ostuni and really liked our friendly small “Hotel Palazzo Papaleo" We didn't get enough time in Lecce but want to spend more time there. It was a lively city, local in feeling.

Thanks to all your replies, I certainly have many new destinations for future trips.

I have booked flights into Brindisi and out of Bari, so looks like I'll be spending a week each in around each.
I've not decided on exact locations yet - I'm trying to balance the "in city, need to use public transport" vs the "in countryside with car" arguements.

My beloved wants to stay in Polignano a Mare, but I'm still open to alternatives. I sometimes get almost as much fun looking at locations and planning I do actually travelling.

Look at the bus routes out of or too the two airports (see airport websites) and the two train companies that exist down there. It is possible to do stuff by Public transport, but it will limit you. Of the must sees for me
Gravina, Gioia, Martina, Mesanga and Manduria are good for nice little towns with ancient centres and good wine, cheese etc

Lecce is the stand out city
Taranto is a modern urban blight stuck on the admiralty centre and an amazing but very poor/dirty ancient island town (great if you like that sort of thing but not for everyone) and the highest levels of polution around. Unless you need to shop, I'd avoid or just pass through.

Do look into Basilicata just incase you are passing

While i understnthat Puglia can be done wihtout a car, I think its an area that lends istelf to having a car. We were there in late Sept and roads were traffic free and easy to drive.

Pollignano is a lovely town and worth considering. Lecce is the biggest city outside Brindi and Bari, and I enjoyed it. Its certainly a good location to base yourself for part of the trip. But I found the smaller towns more intriguing and loved visiting them.

Agree you might want to consider Basilicata esp Matera which is fascinating. A stay of 1-2 nights there would be well worth your time.

Hi Willit: It's funny that when I saw the title of your post the first thing I said to myself was "Puglia or Sardinia"!! You can click on my name for my trip report to Puglia. It's probably considered a verbose report, but it sure was fun writing about it so that I could re-live it! We spent the whole month of June there. Just skip through the first part where I speak of our first couple days in Rome to get to the meat. We did it all without driving. We went by train and bus and hired a cab at one point.

I positively loved Sardinia. We spent two weeks there in the north. It was the last two weeks of September. We went to La Maddalena, Castelsardo, Alghero, and Stintino. It was <i>heavenly</i>, but it may be a little more challenging to have as many options for sleeping in Sardinia the first two weeks of October...on the other hand, AirBnB didn't exist, so you have that going for you.

Lucky you! Buon viaggio!

Thanks for posting--always looking for new ideas. I have had Puglia on my list for about ten years but it keeps getting bumped down for various reasons. Trying Le Marche this time around and driving down to Naples through Abruzzo, another region I have wanted to explore. And Sardinia too.

Looking forward to reading about your trip once you return!