Lecce is the jewel in the crown. Wander its streets to play ping-pong between majestic Baroque church façades and ancient Roman amphitheatres. Hungry for more? There are wine bars with crisp Bianco d'Alessano whites. There are rustic osterias where the menus read spicy tomato passatas, crispy bruschetta, fava beans, and griddled courgettes.
Up in Taranto, meanwhile, are gritty ports crowned by a haunting Aragonese castle. In Ostuni – the legendary White City – brilliant cottages cascade down a hillside to thickets of olive trees. In Monopoli, a salt spray rolls off the Adriatic through paint-peeling fishing boats and cosy trattorias. But you could also book private jet flights to Bari, the region's capital, to find piazzas and palazzos combining in the atmospheric area of Bari Vecchia (Old Bari).
Outside of Puglia's cities lurks another wonderworld. Hailed as the breadbasket of Italy, it's all wheat fields, olive farms, wineries and orchards, punctuated by the occasional round trulli tower (a traditional style of Apulian building). Along the coast, you can venture to gems like the Gargano National Park, where Italy does an impression of Greece's Ionian islands, sporting chalk-white cliffs and craggy coves haloed in pines. Back inland are the canyons, abandoned farms, and tabletop mountains of the Alta Murgia, where you'll smell the earth and wild herbs dancing on the balmy breeze.
BLAK private jets can organise your charter flights to beautiful Puglia today.
