puglia--finalizing itinerary Need Help with 2 nites
 

We have almost finalized our trip to puglia in september.
Question: to relax and walk by the sea, shld we spend 2 nites in Otranto or Polignano a mare?

Day 1: arrive in Lecce by noon; nite in lecce Risorgimento resort
Day 2: Otranto
Day 3 Stop in Ostunia on way to Masseria Madonna dell Arco between the towns of Martina Franca , Locorotondo and Cisternino , (visit trullis, martina franca, possibly Matera)
Day 4 Masseria
Day 5 Drive to BnB Malu in Polignano a Mare
Day 6 Polignano a Mare
Day 7: drive to sorrento

We are debating whether to change otranto to 2nites and reduce Plignano to one nite.
Any thoughts?

Did we make good choices in bnbs/hotels?

this is some super ambitious driving. i don't think you will make it to matera... it's kind of harder to get to than it looks on a map, as i recall.

you could possibly stop in matera on the way to sorrento... but that would mean much smaller roads, i think.

as you get farther south, there are fewer tourists... so i would probably opt for an extra night in otranto while you are down that far...??

Like kawh, I think you need to reconsider how / whether to include Matera in your plan. It is awesome and well worth seeing, but really deserves at least an overnight (if not 2 nights or more) IMO.

I also think you are short-changing Lecce -- I thought it easily merited a full day, if not more.

I enjoyed a few hours in Poligano a Mare. i don't regret spending ONLY a few hours there -- and my time there included a long, leisurely meal at the Risorante Grotta Palazzese which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to get the same kind of raves that it got (and which I thought it deserved) when I was there in 2007.
http://www.grottapalazzese.it/it/home/

Good luck!

I'd add another night to Lecce and take one from Polignano, alternatively put the extra night in the Masseria and there is tons to do around that area

You must enjoy driving. Your itinerary is almost all one-nighters. As an example, the driving distance between Lecce and Otranto is 40 minutes (to the south). Your next stop, Ostunia is 55 mintues NORTH of Lecce. Why not stay in Lecce for more than one night and do day trips from there. You'll save lots of packing and unpacking, and looking for your hotels.

I just returned from Puglia and visited pretty much the same places you are going. Trip report will be up eventually.

Your itinerary doesn't really make sense as you have it, as the others have pointed out. You don't need to stay in both Otranto and Lecce, they are so close. Same with Polignano and the place near Martina Franca. You need one base down close to the tip (we liked staying in Lecce and day tripping from there to Otranto but you could do the other way around) and then one base in the middle somewhere (we liked Polignano). I also agree that you shouldn't try to do Matera as a day trip from there but rather add one (or two) nights en route to Sorrento.

To give you an idea of timing -

We arrive in Lecce around noon, spent the afternoon evening there. The following day we went to Otranto (spent about 3 hours but did not go to the beach at all), then drove down the coast to Santa Cesera Terme (about an hour there) and then over to Gallipoli. We were gone from about 8 to 5 so a longish day but not ridiculous. We intended to go all the way to the tip but realized we wouldn't really have time for that plus Gallipoli. Second night in Lecce.

Then we drove to Polignano where we spent four nights (getting there shortly after 10am). Spent that day in Monopoli and Polignano. Next day did day trip to Ostuni, which we were just slightly disappointed in, and Cisternino. Next day day tripped to Alberobello (delightful before 10am, as we were leaving the tour buses were disgorging and I'm sure such a small town was soon overwhelmed), Locorotundo and Martina Franca. The next day we day tripped to Trani. We loved having Polignano as a base and spending the evenings there. The town is small and if you are going there as a day trip from staying in some other town, you can see it in a few hours. The two beaches in the center of town were crammed all day but there may be some further out as well. We also went to Conversano for a few hours.

We had spent two nights in Matera on the way to Puglia from Sorrento. We didn't arrive till about 5pm the first day so just viewed the town from above, and then spent the following whole day exploring. You really need at least 4 or 5 hours to get the experience, which would be possible en route from Polginano to Sorrento but it would be a long day. Much better to have at least one night.

Anxiously awaiting your trip report, isabel. Especially the Lecce and Matera parts.

With a good local guide (any hotel can provide one), Matera can easily be visited in 4-5 hrs (incl Carlo Levi exhibits in the museum).
But sleep there in a cave hotel, it's unique!

Thanks for all the advice

What do you do when you visit a nearby place and everything closes between 1 and 4?

I did the one nighters which we usually avoid, because of reading that towns shut down between 1 and 4pm. if we get a later morning start and arrive somewhere around 11, what do we do between 1 and 4.
i thought we had a room to stay in, we cld take a siesta and go out again around 4.
now i have to rethink that.

We wanted to spend a night or two by the sea, that is why we picked otranto and polignano.

Isabel--do you have a hotel to recommend in polignano? we looked at grotta palazzese but it had some pretty bad reviews so we chose Malu BNB.

Did you spend a lot of time driving back and forth from you base in PDM?

thank you again!

Well we usually got a pretty early start so except that long day when we did Otranto and Gallipoli we usually got back to the hotel by 3 or so and had siesta then. We certainly were out and about at the start of siesta several times which didn't bother us, I like walking around towns without lots of crowds. You do have to make sure you get lunch in time though. There really isn't a lot of shopping in most of these towns so that wasn't an issue.

From Polignano most of the places we went were less than an hour, so it didn't feel like a lot of back and forth. Trani was a bit further but it was still worth not having to find and move to a new hotel.

We stayed at the Hotel l'Abbate in Polginano. It's right on the exit from the highway so was super easy to drive to/from each day. It did mean we had to drive into town for dinner but it was literally 4 minutes from getting in the car to getting out. There are three large parking lots just over the railroad tracks and from them there is a walkway to the old town (5 min walk). All the places we stayed on this trip we choose for ease of driving rather than charm but they were all very nice even if they were larger hotels rather than quaint B&Bs. The L'Abbate was clean and comfortable, good breakfast, very nice staff, free off street parking. I would stay there again.

"With a good local guide (any hotel can provide one), Matera can easily be visited in 4-5 hrs " -- and with a good guide book, one doesn't even need a guide! :-) But if you want to see the sassi AND some of Matera's interesting churches and other sites, I think you would want more than 4 or 5 hours -- more like the better part of a day.

"What do you do when you visit a nearby place and everything closes between 1 and 4?" You can still walk around to see the interesting architecture, or go to a park, or take a nap....

you have a lot of driving to do... so make the bulk of it between the 1 and 4 hours. maybe pack a lunch and save your big dining out for dinner? that way, you can drive, then have lunch, wander just a bit, then things will be open.

not being morning people, we found it really inconvenient to our travel lifestyle that everything was closed in the afternoon... but worth it, because it's so quaint and european.

ALAINR:

Between 1 and 4 not everything closes. The restaurants are open. That's when you eat lunch.

HOLLY:

If you are interested in a trip report on Puglia, including Matera, check out mine:

http://www.travel.stv77.com/puglia/puglia.htm

"Between 1 and 4 not everything closes. The restaurants are open." -- not necessarily! On a Sunday in Lecce in early June of 2007, I found only one open restaurant, and it was not only completely full, it had a very long line of waiting people.

My experience was that there were some places open for lunch. No where near as many as are open for dinner. But it's not that they close for siesta, they just don't open till evening (7-7:30 seemed to be opening time for a lot of places). But most towns did have at least a few places to get lunch, at least until about 3 or 4pm. And while we found the closing up of villages for siesta much more prominent than in other places in Italy, in Pulia, shopping was not that interesting so having stores closed wasn't much of a problem. In other parts of Italy I like to browse ceramics shops, places selling local arts and crafts and jewelry, etc. But there just wasn't much of that in most of the towns we visited in Pulia. And museums didn't figure in much either.

Restaurants in business quarters are often closed over the weekend whereas those on beaches tend to be open all the day (in July-August).
Lunch is usually served between 2 and 3 pm, dinner after 8pm.

Very nice report, steve. You mentioned some conversations you had with locals there - do you speak Italian?

Holly, my wife is very fluent (in about 6 languages) !

does it seem a better plan to spend:

3 nites in lecce
and
3 in either martina franca area or polignano a mare?

we wanted to stay near the water in one place which is why we picked otranto, but it seems further south than most things we wld visit.

appreciate all the good advice.

It really depends on what you want to see/experience. These three places are all within an hour or so of each other.... If you haven't already done so, I recommend that you get some good guidebooks (or spend some time with a few in your local library), identify the things you most want to see in each location, note their opening/closing times, and mark them on a calendar. Then pencil in your transportation, including AT LEAST two or three hours on either side (for checking in/out, packing/unpacking, getting oriented, etc.). Then see how things fit together.