Hello! I’m looking for suggestions for where to stay in Puglia. We prefer being in a town, not a rural location, and will want to be within easy driving of some towns to visit. I don’t know much about this region at all, so suggestions for maybe 2-3 towns to visit are appreciated. Grazie!

Martina Franca Is pretty good. It has a railway station and well placed between Taranto and Lecce.

I really liked Ostuni and think it's a good base to visit some other towns such as Lecce, Alberobello, Monopoli, Polignano a Mare, ...

Ciao! I'm glad to help you with some suggestions for your trip to Puglia.

Where to stay

• Bari: It's a great choice as a base. Bari is a vibrant city with a beautiful old town where you can wander around the narrow alleys, visit historical churches like the Basilica di San Nicola, and enjoy the local food in numerous trattorias and cafes. There are also many shops and markets where you can buy some local handicrafts or taste delicious regional products. From Bari, it's quite convenient to drive to other nearby towns.
• Lecce: Known as the "Florence of the South", Lecce has magnificent Baroque architecture that will surely amaze you. The city center is filled with ornate buildings, squares, and churches, such as the Basilica di Santa Croce. Staying in Lecce allows you to soak up the unique artistic atmosphere and also easily explore the surrounding areas by car.

What time of year are you planning to visit? Do you want to be near the sea?

We spent a week in Ostuni with a guided tour, and enjoyed our time there. We wanted to spend time on our own before the tour, and the guide suggested Trani. Trani worked perfectly. There was enough to do in town, the setting was lovely, there were several good restaurants, and the train station in town made it easy to hop on to explore other towns along the coast. On our tour we visited Martina Franca ( recommended above) and I wish we had had more time there as it's a lovely little town.

I would also recommend Lecce and Bari but neither of these are towns, they are cities in my mind.

Lecce old town is beautiful (I was married there) and well placed for using public transport, less so for cars as the centre is so narrow and you end up needing to leave cars outside. Bari has a certain reputation (much improved) and certainly there are bars into which one probably should not go. But at the end of the day it is a port city and worth some time.

Thanks so much for the wonderful suggestions! We’ll be there in July. I know, worst time to be on vacation, but I’m a teacher, so no choice in the matter! Would that I f,Eunice your choice in terms of where you’d stay? I generally like being near the sea, but we’ll be along Amalfi Coast the week before. Are the seaside town in Puglia similar or is there a different vibe?

Very different from Amalfi Coast. I agree that Trani would be a good choice for lots of reasons mentioned here:
https://slowtravelitalyspain.blogspo...ove-trani.html
You wouldn't really need a car there all the time because you could travel to Brindisi, Bari, Monopoli, Polignano, Giovinazzo etc by train. There's an excellent service along the east coast of Puglia.
Lecce could be another good base - a city, yes, but a small one

Completely different, IME!

Do you want a town or a city..that's the first question you might want to answer.

Alberobello, Ostuni, Polignano a Mare, Otranto!

When we go there, we usually like to stay in the countryside near a town, rather than IN the town. We've always rented a car for Puglia and Basilicata trips.

There are lots of great places to stay all over the region now, so many more than when we first began traveling there.....I think some of those famous towns have become very crowded in season. Look at masserie near towns, but not In them..

On our first trip years ago, we stayed at Masseria Montelauro near Otranto. Lovely place. I could recommend many others but you've not answered the question: town, or city and now, rural location....??

https://masseriamontelauro.it/en/

I would NOT stay in Alberobello.

nor me

My favorites: Trani and Lecce.

I'm among those who would NOT stay in Alberobello -- too touristy, even before Puglia became a popular destination! Visit it, then go elsewhere.

Agree about Trani and Lecce. But driving in and out of Lecce with a car? Maybe park the car and spend a few days in Lecce without using it....three nights there?

I'd not use a car in Italy but in Lecce your landlord should be able to show you were to put the car safely.

I had a car in Lecce a couple years ago and didn't find it difficult to drive in and out for day trips--obviously I didn't drive into the ZTL, instead choosing parking outside the gates. One evening I had to circle a bit to find parking. Honestly, it's not bad. Of course some days the car just stayed parked, as I spent all my time in the city itself. I think I had five nights there, maybe six?

Yes, I'm sure it's much easier than what my post might lead you to believe. I remember (and this was years ago, before GPS in cars) we had a horrible time trying to drive to our hotel. Of course driver and passenger had words between them..leading to car being just left on a piazza near the hotel.and driver (not me) storming out.....happily, we did not get a ticket; I found the hotel, the hotel guy came with us back to thee car, and he drove the car to a parking lot and we left it there for the few nights we stayed In Lecce. At the time it seemed like a big crisis but looking back, we were working with paper maps, so...

What I also remember is how we got really lost a few times in the countryside, and how random pedestrians we stopped the car near were so helpful and happy to point us in the right direction..... But that's been my expreience all over Italy... On the same trip, or one close to that one in time, we were looking for a restaurant in Taviano in Salento, and an older man led us straight to thee doorway on his old bicycle, when we were driving!! Little things like that stick in your minds.. I remember the restaurant, too--it's now named Casa Martino but back then the name was in dialect. We had so much fun there.....and were surely the only foreigners at the place that night..... I think that was one of the first trips that I had horse meat and also that ricotta forte....that very strong cheese typical of Puglia.

Well, that's certainly more exciting than me circling for parking for over 10 minutes.

In addition to GPS, I find looking at potential parking lots/areas in advance on Google Street View makes it easier for me to identify them immediately while driving. So there's almost none of that, "Dang I missed the turn" followed by navigating through a warren of one way streets in heavy traffic.