Puglia: masseria weeks, and the difference between the two seas

A Puglia week is a masseria week: a fortified farmhouse in olive country, thick walls, a pool cut into the courtyard, and a cook who works with what the estate grows. The question is which part of the region.

The Valle d'Itria — Ostuni, Ceglie Messapica, Cisternino — is the classic base. White towns on hills, trulli in the fields, and the Adriatic beaches at Torre Guaceto and Savelletri twenty-five minutes away. Salento, further south around Otranto and Gallipoli, is hotter, flatter and more about the sea, with the Ionian side's shallow sand and the Adriatic side's rock coves.

Distances mislead. Lecce is an hour from Ostuni and worth a full evening; Matera, in Basilicata, is ninety minutes and worth an overnight rather than a day trip. Fly into Brindisi rather than Bari where the schedule allows — it halves the transfer.

Eat where the region is strongest: burrata in Andria, sea urchin on the Adriatic in spring, and the long masseria lunch your own kitchen does better than a restaurant. September is the month we recommend — the sea is still warm, the olive harvest is beginning, and August's Italian holiday crowds have gone home.