Italy: Why Puglia’s slow pace makes it one of Italy’s top road trips

Amelia Duggan

Rome: My destination beckons across the undulating valley, framed by sunbaked orchards and a pastel sky growing heavy with dusk: a low-rise masseria (farm estate), alone in the landscape but for a dusting of sheep. Dinner awaits down the uneven track ahead but, unwilling for the journey to end, I’ve slowed my car to a crawl. There’s something hypnotic about driving through the hinterland of Italy’s heel — the timeless scenery and drowsy warmth invite a slower pace of travel.

Finally pulling up at restaurant Le Stanzie, I follow voices around the sturdy main house, through leafy vegetable patches and patios piled with aesthetically stacked produce, to discover Chiara Rimo holding court with a gaggle of diners. Beneath their feet is the uneven paving of a Roman road. “Don’t ask me how old the masseria is — we cannot possibly know — but every era has left its mark,” says the young, dark-haired hostess. “Our name comes from the Latin for ‘rooms’. This has long been a place of hospitality.”

Despite its imprecise provenance, this is certainly one of the oldest agricultural estates in Salento, the most southerly region of Puglia. “Ask me if I’m Pugliese and I’ll say no, I’m Salentina. This part of Italy is truly another country,” Chiara tells me proudly, continuing her tour through the largely 16th-century farmhouse, salvaged from ruin as a pioneering farm-to-table restaurant in 1999. “It feels frozen in time, no?” she says, depositing me at my table, tucked away in a vaulted, candlelit pantry lined with preserves.

The menu is seasonal and short — an authentic expression of Salento’s cucina povera: traditional peasant cooking. I tuck into a crunchy starter of fried bread and black beans, then devour fresh, hand-pulled pasta doused with a rich pork ragu, paired with a local Negroamaro wine, which tastes of dark berries. Courses keep coming, but at a leisurely pace; dining is an art form here. When it’s finally time to leave, Chiara and I hug like old friends, and she presses a jar of lemon marmalade into my hands.

Over the following days, Salento continues to be generous in sharing its bounty. I follow byways recommended by Audley Travel, the tour company that designed my bespoke trip, tracing the Adriatic south. I head from the butter-hued baroque monuments of Lecce along coastal roads fringed with wildflowers, passing the sea stacks of Faraglioni di Sant’Andrea. In the town of Otranto, on a promenade overlooking a marina, I meet guide Gianluca Tonti, an amateur historian with eyes as bright as the shallows.

“We’re far from the rest of Italy down here and have always felt exposed to the continent to the east,” he tells me, pointing out the misty outline of Albania across the water. The great invasion that reshaped Otranto was in 1480, when 18,000 Ottoman troops arrived at the gates, leading — so the story goes — to the beheading of 813 Christians who refused to convert. “Even though I relay this traditional version, I don’t believe a single word. The pashas were tolerant when it came to belief.” Gianluca’s interrogations of the historical canon are, I learn, habitual.

We tour the battlements of Otranto’s stocky Aragonese Castle, built in the late 15th century by the Spanish, and wind through the stone lanes of the old town to the Cathedral of Santa Maria Annunziata. Founded in 1068 by Norman rulers, it holds a grisly ossuary of the martyrs — and, more curiously, an astonishingly ambitious 6,500sq ft medieval mosaic of biblical and folkloric characters that offers a nearly millennia-old window onto past beliefs. Gianluca points out King Arthur and an Amazonian warrior among the figures depicted.

Salento’s surreal, softly cinematic quality deepens as I continue along the fantastical 30-mile stretch of road informally known as Litoranea Salentina. Connecting Otranto to Santa Maria di Leuca at the peninsula’s tip, it offers up timeless olive groves and the shifting hues of the Mediterranean, snaking down the coast past the lighthouse at Punta Palascìa, the cliff-cut lidos of Santa Cesarea Terme, the sea caves surrounding Castro Marina and the picturesque harbour of Porto di Tricase.

At each, I pull over for a few minutes or a few hours, guided by whim and, often, my hunger. It’s the kind of unstructured, slow travel that reaps rewards — instinctual, meandering, guided by the moment — and only really possible on an independent road trip.

Another day, I explore the Ionian coastline. The miles of pleasure beaches surrounding Gallipoli offer perfect contrast with the cragged Adriatic coves of Marina Serra, where sunbathing involves draping yourself nymph-like across the rocks and slipping into natural pools to swim feels like a baptism. Sea urchins cling to the rocks below in still-life perfection, and fish dart away through shafts of light as if scattering from a passing god.

With nothing but time and a tank of petrol, I cruise the empty country roads of the interior utterly undisturbed. Occasionally, I take pit stops in village cafes so off the beaten track that no English or even — to my ear — recognisable Italian is spoken. Instead, I hear one of Salento’s many dialects, some of which have Byzantine roots, and learn to order as the locals do: a caffè Leccese, an espresso shot with almond syrup served over clinking ice cubes, and a warm pasticciotto, a small pastry pie filled with sweet egg custard.

During one such stop, Gianluca sends me text recommendations about local towns, which leads me to discover the baroque architecture of Nardò and the 15th-century frescoes of Galatina’s Basilica of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria, featuring scenes from the Apocalypse and Genesis. “There are many churches in Southern Italy, but that one’s worth a trip to this land alone,” he quips when we meet again for a final tour in his hometown. Presicce hit headlines in 2022, when the local government started offering €30,000 (£26,000) to anyone willing to move there and do up an abandoned building. “Life’s slow in Salento,” he acknowledges. “But to me, it’s still a slice of paradise.”

He takes me to sample different intensities of extra virgin olive oil in third-generation manufacturer Gianvito Negro Valiani’s modern factory, learning to identify the fragrant spice and ‘smoothness’ of this liquid gold. Once, Presicce’s frantoi ipogei — a vast subterranean network of underground olive presses, carved into the soft bedrock — supercharged the local economy. The oil made here was exported to the major cities of Europe to light streetlamps, until the arrival of electricity saw the industry dwindle and the product refined for culinary use.

In contrast to those dank caverns, where labourers slaved in the winter months between harvest and spring, Gianvito’s family-run operation gleams with polished steel. “Our traditions may be ancient, but we don’t live in the past,” he says. Nevertheless, Salento’s old rites of hospitality have endured — rooted in this earth, they’re as solid as a masseria, as sacred as a medieval church. “I hope you’ll join us for lunch?”