Puglia, Italy – what to visit
Hey hey! It was about time to dedicate a post to one of my favorite countries on Earth – Italy. Bella Italia! I don’t know a single person who doesn’t love Italy. Even my sister, who was convinced that she didn’t like it, fell in love after visiting more Italian cities. This article will help you decide what to visit while in Puglia region in Italy.
Every single part of this magnificent place is so different. Every time I visit a new region I say that it is the best one so far and every time there is another new one that impresses me more. So if you haven’t figured it out yet – I love every single centimeter of Italy. And as you can imagine, there will be several posts dedicated to it, but let me start with Puglia.
During our stay in the south we managed to visit Bari, Alberobello and Monopoli. I am absolutely sure that there are many more to be seen, but for the limited time we had, these three were more than enough to make me wanna come back again.
Bari
I have to be honest here, Bari is not the best city in Italy, but it has its charm. Going to South Italy in mid July could be a risky adventure as it is really hot during the summer, more than 40 degrees sometimes. Make sure to pick a hotel/apartment with air conditioning!
We arrived late in the evening, just right on time for dinner. Close to Giardino Corso Vittorio Emanuele II we found a nice restaurant where to sit.
Time for pizza and Aperol spritz!
South of Italy is definitely way cheaper compared to the North. 
After dinner we did a quick night walk around the city. I’ve heard that during the school year there are plenty of university students in the city, but during the summer was not that crowded. It was actually quite empty! Finally we found the people. 
They were sitting along the sea alley – Lungomare Imperatore Augusto, people from all ages, in different circles, talking about life, having beers, laughing, being loud all together. It was kind of romantic and simple, felt like the time had stopped there.
On the next day we decided to explore the city. I really liked the old city center. 
Narrow streets, colorful buildings, small pastery shops, street sellers, vespas and laundry hanging above our heads. 
So Italian!
Close to the cathedral – Cattedrale di San Sabino we found a small café.
Capuccino and croissant – when in Italy do as Italians do.
We continued our city tour by visiting the castle – Castello Normanno.
As I probably already mentioned, I normally don’t go inside such monuments. I often find them as a tourist trap. 
The rest of the group wanted to go inside and I followed. Well, I should have listened to my inside voice not to go inside. You can easily save these 8 euros without any regrets.
There is a wall surrounding the old city where you can climb and walk.
It has amazing views towards the sea and the port of Bari. The wall ends in Piazza del Ferrarese – the square where we started our tour.
It was time for lunch so we picked one of the restaurants in the area – at Piazza Mercantile.
Fun fact about smaller cities in Italy is that most of the restaurants are closed between lunch and dinner so in case you miss the lunch time you have to go to the supermarket and buy something there, no pizza, no pasta between 3 and 8.
Eating in the most touristic area in general comes with higher prices and/or lower quality of the food. We were super disappointed by the service of the place we picked, this is why I wouldn’t share any recommendation here, negative publicity is still publicity.
For dinner we had better luck and we tasted lovely sea food in La Locanda di Federico.
After dinner we continued with drinks in a Mexican bar/restaurant – La Parilla de Juan, on the same square. 
My heart is latino, I cannot help it! 😀 The cocktails were good and tasty!
Being in Italy in the summer requires going to the beach. The local beach is called Pane e Pomodoro (bread and tomato). 
We all know that city beaches are not the best in every big city, but this one was not that bad. 
It was a bit crowded, but the water was clear and as it is not that deep you can go far inside in order to avoid the other visitors. Another plus was that there is a bar where you can order more Aperol. Win win!
Alberobello
Alberobello was the goal of my trip to Puglia. I am a huge Instagram fan and I’ve seen so many pictures from Alberobello so I told to myself – you are going, girl!
I wanted to see this cuteness with my eyes.
We rented a car for the day as we planned to visit more than one place. Transport in Italy is not cheap in general so in our case, as we were five people, renting a car was the most obvious decision. It costs around 100-120 euros for one day, if you rent it for more of course it gets cheaper. Alberobello is one hour away from Bari. When you reach the city you can see that on the left hill there is the touristic part of the city and to the right is where people still live and also the hotel part of the city.
To be more specific, the magic of Alberobello and its fame comes from the typical houses, called Trulli. 
Both sides of the city consist of trulli houses, but on the left, where is the touristic zone nobody lives, you can find a lot of souvenir shops and few restaurants. Local people also live in trulli, everything is so white and cute.
Walking around the city immediately makes you feel like a Disney character.
Unfortunately the area is famous and quite touristic, so it takes a lot of patience to take the perfect picture. 
The smartest decision would be to go early in the morning when there are no other tourists and to enjoy the city on your own.
It also helps to avoid the heat, because as we were late because of the time we spent to rent the car in the morning, we arrived around 11-12 and it was burning! 
In general there is not much to do there, so couple of hours is enough to see it. We were exhausted by the heat and out next destination was the beach.
Monopoli
Living abroad has its advantages, you meet so many people from all around the world. This means that you always have someone to ask for advice whenever you visit their homeland. Lucky me, I had a friend from Bari and she gave me good recommendations for the best beaches in the area.
We picked Monopoli (not only because of the funny name).
Close to the city there are several hidden small beaches where you can go and enjoy the day. 
The first one – Spaggia di Porto Verde, was so small and so crowded that in the end we couldn’t stay there and we headed to the next one which is 300 m away – Spaggia di Cala Paradiso. 
There was a coffee place (to be read Aperol) on the top of the rocks which helps in the hot summer day. 
We spent some hours there, but we were quite hungry so we decided to visit the city and eat there before going back to Bari.
One advise. 
When you rent a car be really careful where you go, because apparently in some cities rental cars are not allowed to enter and you receive a fine few months later (yes, I speak from experience). But to be more interesting – there isn’t any sign to show you where you are or you are not allowed to go. A Russian roulette.
Our plan was to find a restaurant to eat. It was around 18-18.30. Do you remember when I told you that restaurants are not open until dinner time, which here was 20.00? So yes, I learnt it in Monopoli.
Even though we were starving, we didn’t have much of a chance to find something open, except bars and cafés, so we decided to walk around the city and explore it a bit.
Monopoli is a beautiful small city. In a typical Italian style – white/beige colors, a lot of flowers and cactuses, old town surrounded by a wall, small cafés in narrow streets, street musicians singing old songs, beautiful sea views and many many more.
Finally it was 20h and we managed to eat!
Our choice was Osteria Gallo Nero. Let’s say that it could have been better.
If you have more time there, another recommendation from my friend was Polignano a Mare, I saw the pictures, it is beautiful!
Our short three days were over and I still have many places in Puglia on my list, which I haven’t had the chance to visit, so you could expect a vol.2 of this post in the near future.
Ciao ragazzi,
See you soon when Travelista goes to…
If you are interested in other Italian cities, visit my travel section.