Puglia isn’t just any other region in southern Italy. Puglia is a feeling. It’s the morning light reflecting on gentle waves lapping onto the shore line. The quiet rhythm of hands shaping fresh pasta. The songs that echo through village piazzas during local festivals. If you want to discover Puglia off the beaten path, you’ll discover that the Italian lifestyle is alive in every corner of the region.
Traveling through this corner of southern Italy means slowing down. This is a place where stone farmhouses sit quietly among ancient olive groves, where meals are hour-long affairs, and where strangers quickly become friends over a glass of local wine.
With The Society, a community of local travel experts curated by Pugliamare, we’ll introduce you to the people, landscapes, and traditions that stay with you long after you’ve left — the kind of moments you only find when you wander Puglia off the beaten path.
Sunday Lunch in Puglia
In Puglia, Sunday isn’t just another day — it’s sacred. Not only in a religious sense, but for the pranzo della domenica, or Sunday lunch. This weekly ritual of food, family and deep-rooted tradition is central to life here.
The day starts with the smell of sugo simmering gently on the stove before the sun is fully up. Somewhere, a grandmother is chopping vegetables, while her daughter is preparing polpette and calling her kids to set the table.
The table is a joyful mess of food and stories. Always full and noisy. Here you’ll find Puglia’s most famous dishes: orecchiette con le cime di rapa, melanzane ripiene, panzerotti that crunch with every bite, and slices of focaccia barese still warm from the oven. Someone has brought a tray of pasticciotti, little custard-filled pastries from Lecce.
This is Puglia on a Sunday.
But the meal is more than what’s served. It’s all about the chiacchiere — the conversations between bites, the memories poured with the wine and the comfort of lingering long after dessert.
Sailing Along The Coast
One of the best ways to experience Puglia is to sail along one of Italy’s most scenic coastlines: between Polignano a Mare and Monopoli, where white cliffs plunge into crystal-clear. Or along the Ionian coast, where the sea turns a deeper shade of blue. Or at the very tip of Puglia in Santa Maria di Leuca, where the Adriatic and Ionian meet and the two seas magically become one.
Aboard an elegant yacht, a spacious catamaran, or a romantic sailboat, these experiences are designed for those who love to take in the sea with style, and without fuss. The pace is slow, the breeze is gentle and the views breathtaking. There are so many sea caves to explore, hidden coves to anchor in, and that endless Adriatic blue that only this coast can offer.
The day starts with warm focaccia from Bari, fresh seasonal fruit, local cheeses and white or rosé wine served chilled. Aboard the boat, a private chef prepares every dish on the spot: the scent of grilled seafood or crudomare — raw delicacies such as oysters and purple shrimp — handmade pasta, and seasonal vegetables drifts through the salty air.
Every bite is designed to be savored slowly, barefoot on deck. There are no plans: just the sea, the warmth of good company and the quiet magic of a day slipping into night.
Driving Through Puglia
There’s a special kind of freedom that comes in exploring Puglia’s country roads in a vintage car. Along the way, the scenery shifts from endless olive groves to clusters of trulli, from rolling hills to whitewashed towns.
It all begins behind the wheel of a classic Fiat 500 in soft pastel hues, a retro Fiat Pulmino, or a charming vintage convertible — vehicles that instantly transport you back to a slower, more romantic Italy.
The road winds gracefully through the rolling hills of the Itria Valley, where the whitewashed towns blend with the green of endless olive groves. Along the way, there are stops for a coffee, a stroll or just getting lost in the beauty of a backstreet.
The true highlight awaits in Ostuni,”The White City,” a dazzling hilltop town bathed in southern light. Just beyond its historic center, nestled in the countryside, lies an authentic masseria (traditional farmhouse), surrounded by ancient olive trees that look like living sculptures.
Here, you’ll learn the secrets of extra virgin olive oil: from harvesting and pressing, to recognizing aromas and mastering tasting techniques. You’ll savor the nuances of Puglia’s liquid gold, its bitterness, spiciness, fruitiness, all brought to life with warm, rustic bread, just as locals have done for generations.
Wine Tasting In The Vineyard
In Puglia, wine is not just made — it’s lived.
A walk through the vineyard begins with the winemaker’s stories — of soil, harvest and ancestral techniques. You taste the wines where they were born: perhaps a crisp ancestral-method sparkling with bright minerality, then a bold Primitivo red, full of warmth and sun.
Hay bales scattered between the rows become rustic seats, inviting you to relax, glass in hand, surrounded by the quiet hum of nature. The air is filled with scent: wild herbs, earth and the unmistakable perfume of ripe grapes nearing harvest.
Soon it’s time for dinner. A long wooden table appears between the vines, dressed simply with linen, candles and wildflowers. The menu? A celebration of local flavors, crafted to pair perfectly with each wine. Handmade pasta with seasonal ingredients, grilled vegetables, artisan cheeses, slow-cooked meats or fresh fish depending on the day, and always, that unmistakable Apulian generosity on every plate.
Discover Local Artisanship
For those who want more than sightseeing, meeting artisans offers a window into Puglia’s soul and time-honored traditions. In small towns and countryside workshops across Puglia, artisans still shape the world the way their grandparents did.
Sit beside a basket weaver in a quiet corner of the village, and you’ll feel it — the calm repetition of hands that know exactly what to do. Then head to Grottaglie, where clay speaks a language of its own. Inside the old workshops, potters shape the earth beneath their palms. Their wheels spin slowly, their fingers press and pull, every bowl and every plate holds a bit of the place it was born. You can sit at the wheel too, your hands in the clay, and feel what it means to make something from the earth.
Later, you might meet a luminaire maker who builds the glowing wooden arches that light up village streets during the local festas. Built by hand, painted, wired with tiny bulbs one by one.
These aren’t “experiences” in the usual sense. They’re people, letting you into their lives for a moment. They don’t perform. They just do what they’ve always done, and if you want to learn, they’ll show you.
Market Experience and Cooking Class
To understand Puglia off the beaten path, follow its flavors. With a local guide, wander through the market, taste figs still warm from the sun, learn advice on how to choose the best burrata and hear the fish vendor call out the morning’s catch.
With baskets full of fresh ingredients, head to a countryside trullo or seaside home. There, Annamaria — a cook whose hands have memorized each recipe — shows how to shape orecchiette, stretch focaccia and season dishes passed down through generations.
When dinner is ready, the table is laid with linen, simple ceramics, and flowers from the garden. Each plate tells the story of its ingredients: the wheat from nearby fields, the cheese made that morning, the olive oil pressed down the road. As the meal takes place, it’s not just about the food but the sense of place it carries — a taste of Puglia off the beaten path that stays with you long after you’ve left.
