6 Days / 5 Night – Rome, Sorrento, Amalfi, Ravello, Positano, Pompeii, Matera, Alberobello, Ostuni & Lecce

Tour Overview
Start your tour by visiting Locorotondo and Cisternino while passing along beautiful small villages, vineyards, and olive trees. Explore Ostuni, known as the White Town and perched on three hills. Drive to Matera, the third oldest city in the world. Visit the charming town of Monopoli, known for its heroic fishermen and quality wines. Take a guided tour of Leece, the city with magnificent baroque architecture and strong Messapian roots.

Day 01: Friday – Arrival

Arrival at Bari airport and transfer to your hotel. Welcome briefing and overnight in Alberobello.

Day 02: Saturday – Alberobello, Locorotondo & Cisternino (B)

After breakfast, meet your driver guide and start your exploration of Val d’Itria. You will visit Locorotondo and Cisternino and pass along beautiful small villages, vineyards and olive trees. Locorotondo is very close to Alberobello and is considered one of the most beautiful villages in Italy. Here, the town itself is the main sight. It’s a pleasant place to spend an hour or two wandering, taking photographs and sitting at cafe tables. The historic part of town – the centro storico – is circular and perched on top of a hill. It’s a whitewashed maze of little lanes lined with historic buildings, some humble and faded, others retaining rather grand baroque archways and architectural details. The territory of Cisternino was already inhabited during the Middle Palaeolithic period by humans who reached the area from the north and the south of Puglia. These populations left numerous traces of their presence here, such as tools that they used like spears spikes, blades, scrapers and chisels to engrave bones.Cisternino is today a small charming old town centre that has remained virtually intact for centuries with its white houses, narrow streets, little churches and elegant central piazza with a series of panoramic viewpoints from which you can appreciate the around countryside, dotted with its rolling hills, dry stone walls and Trulli roofs piercing the green fields. Cisternino is nice to visit at any time of day, though the magical moments are the summer’s evening when the sun sets and the locals come out for their evening stroll. We will have a wine and cheese tasting followed by a farmer lunch in a beautiful Masseria, from where you will see the green of olives and the blue of the Adriatic sea. Return to Alberobello where you will have time to explore the city on your own. Alberobello is a fascinating place to visit, above all because of the trulli, the traditional dome shaped buildings made from the local stone. The town is surrounded by the olive groves and vineyards typical of the Puglia region.Trulli is a word that derives from the Greek “tholos” (“dome”), the typical shape of the buildings. Each whitewashed “trullo” is built without an lime or cement, and has a conical roof on the outside, which is dome shaped inside, and consists of a square central compartment that communicates through arcades with the kitchen and other rooms. Overnight in Alberobello.

Day 03: Sunday Ostuni, Polignano & Monopoli (B)

Departure from your hotel (pick up from hotels will be from 6.30 to 7.00 am, please remember to order your breakfast box at your hotel the day before departure!)
Today, visit Ostuni, Polignano & Monopoli. Ostuni, perched on three hills 218 meters above sea level, is better known as the “White Town”, thanks to the characteristic whitewashed houses of its historic center, a tradition the inhabitants still keep on. The Fifteenth century Romanesque-Gothic Cathedral dominates the town, with a façade sporting a 24-rays rose window of rare beauty. A series of churches and elegant houses embellish the old town, surrounded by Aragonese walls, where there are the two ancient town gates, Porta Nova and Porta San Demetrio. The small town of Polignano enjoys a spectacular position. Placed approximately 50 miles south of Bari is erected on the edge of a rocky gorge. The town is considered one of the most ancient establishments in Puglia and was populated by serial invaders ranging from the Huns to the Normans. People come here to view the crashing waves, visit the caves and crowd out the panifici (bakery) in the atmospheric historical center. In Monopoli you will experience the “Paese vecchio” as the locals usually call the heart of the town, where you will find an unusual concentration of cultural heritage and Churches, positioned literally one next to another. You will find small and charming homes, once inhabited by heroic fishermen and expert farmers, whose children are still dedicated to producing great wines and unpassed wines. Walking among the narrow streets ,between arches and alleys, you will feel sea air and fragrances of freshly hanging laundry or tomato sauce cooked for hours. Overnight in Alberobello.

Day 04: Monday – Matera (B)

Meet your driver and transfer to Sorrento with en route stop in Matera where you will have free time to explore the city. Matera is an ancient city that seems to have existed forever. It is the third oldest city in the world, after Aleppo and Jericho, with over 10,000 years of history. From natural cavities carved by wind and rain of the past to the first man-made caves we can discover how easy it was to shape the limestone material of the Sassi rock. Hence real underground dwellings, in the belly of Mother Earth, which will leave you speechless. A woven structure that has intrigued experts has also discovered how it had been possible to live with the absence of running water. There is still a lot to tell about the water systems created to collect water, one of the elements that has helped to give in Matera the title of a World Heritage Site. You can visit the most beautiful churches, starting from the Duomo on the Civita; walk through the beautiful streets and traffic-free squares, populated with people; you can enjoy the most picturesque alleys, and you will continue your visit in the heart of the two Sassi’s. Overnight in Lecce.

Day 05: Tuesday – Lecce (B)

In the afternoon, meet your guide and have a guided visit of the town. Called “the Florence of the South,” Lecce has strong Messapian roots, an ancient and mysterious people living in this area before the Romans. Today, it welcomes visitors with its magnificent baroque architecture, which blazes on the portals of its palaces and on the facades of the many churches that line the streets inside the city’s three ancient gates: Porta Rudiae, Porta San Biagio and Porta Napoli. Overnight in Lecce.

Day 06: Wednesday – Lecce (B)

Transfer to Bari Airport.

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