Itria Valley

Stone, and what was done with it

Farming this plateau meant clearing it first. Limestone lies close to the surface and comes up with the plough, endlessly, so generations of farmers lifted it out and had to put it somewhere. What they built with it is the visual signature of the whole valley: field walls in unmortared courses, low huts, and the trulli — cone-roofed structures corbelled from flat stones without mortar, grey against red earth and silver-green olive.

Alberobello holds the greatest concentration of them and has the coach traffic to match. Elsewhere the valley is less concentrated: trulli standing singly in fields, in twos and threes along the roads, converted into houses, sheds and holiday lets. The usual story about the mortarless construction — that a roof could be pulled down quickly when a tax inspector was expected — gets repeated everywhere and treated sceptically by historians. Take it as folklore.

Water is the other shaping force, by its absence. Karst limestone drains everything downwards and the plateau has no rivers to speak of, which is why cisterns sit under the old courtyards.

When to come

May, June and September are the valley's window, and temperature is the reason. Inland Puglia in July and August is punishing, with the whitewash throwing light back at you and very little shade between towns. Late spring gives you green verges, wild fennel and long evenings. September gives warm stone, a countryside back at work, and sea still worth the drive.

Couples tend to want the evening circuit. Towns here are small, walkable and close together — one laid out in concentric rings, one baroque and grand enough to host a summer opera festival, another where you choose your meat at a butcher's counter and it comes to your table outside, grilled. Dinner in a different one each night is a good way to use a week.

Getting about

A car is not negotiable. Estates sit down unnamed tracks, the towns are strung across the plateau, and the buses are designed for residents rather than visitors. Distances are short and the driving is easy — flat, straight roads between dry-stone walls — which makes an evening trip out a decision rather than an expedition.

Whether it is expensive

Puglia spent years as the affordable alternative and has been steadily correcting that, particularly at the top. Converted masserie — fortified farm estates, thick-walled, built around courtyards — now run to serious money, and the good ones earn it: land, silence, a pool, a kitchen working with what the estate grows.

Value further down is reliable, because the building stock is so plentiful. A restored trullo or a small farmhouse with a pool delivers most of what the estates deliver, minus the service and the acreage. Rooms inside the towns are cheaper again and put dinner on your doorstep. Since supply is scattered across open countryside and quality is hard to judge from a photograph, comparing current stay and experience options across your dates repays the effort.

What is worth paying for

A pool, for the reason it matters anywhere hot and rural: it converts the unusable middle of the day into time well spent.

After that, spend on land rather than fittings — an estate with its own groves, a table where the oil and the vegetables come off the property, an afternoon in a kitchen learning the pasta shapes this region still makes by hand.

Where to stay

Splurge

A fully restored masseria with its own olive groves, a spa in the old cellars, a courtyard pool and a kitchen that cooks what the estate grows. Self-contained destinations built for slow weeks, these suit travellers who would rather the countryside were brought to them.

Mid-range

A converted trullo complex or small country house with a pool and a handful of rooms, usually run by the family that restored it. The setting is much the same one the estates charge a premium for, and the welcome is personal. Ideal for couples with a car and no fixed itinerary.

Good value

An apartment or guesthouse inside one of the white towns, where you step out into a lane rather than a field. You give up the pool and the silence and you gain dinner within walking distance. Right for anyone who would rather spend on the region than on the room.

The valley at a glance