Puglia after the crowds thin — long lunches, whitewashed masserie, sea the colour of green glass.
There is a particular week — the one that begins when the families go home and ends when the light turns amber — where the Adriatic coast belongs to whoever had the composure to wait. Puglia in late August is not the Puglia of July. The masserie release their rooms. The trulli towns exhale. You can have Polignano a Mare at seven in the morning entirely to yourself.
Stay inland rather than on the water. The restored farmhouse estates around Savelletri and Ostuni — Borgo Egnazia, Masseria Torre Maizza, the smaller family-run properties around Carovigno — trade a sea view for olive groves, silence and a pool that no one else is using. Drive to the coast for the afternoon; return for dinner under the fig trees.
Eat where the menu is short. Orecchiette with turnip tops, raw red prawns from Gallipoli, burrata that arrives still warm. Book Il Ristorante at the Torre; then abandon the reservation for the trattoria the concierge mentioned quietly, which is always the better evening.
“Late summer rewards the woman who books last. The season has already spent itself on everyone else.”
Practical
- Best time — the final ten days of August into the first of September.
- Where to stay — a restored masseria inland; Savelletri, Ostuni or Carovigno.
- Where to eat — Bari's old town for focaccia at eleven; Gallipoli for raw fish.
- Fly to Brindisi rather than Bari; the drive is shorter and prettier.
