Trekking Puglia
Sitting at a side street bar in Lecce
We dropped off our rental car after 44 days of driving through Italy and repacked our luggage for a plane ride which involved consuming several bottles of wine and Prosecco we lugged around and couldn’t bring on the plane.
We were excited to head to Puglia as we’ve been to Italy numerous times but never made it so far south. This was new territory for us and we were going to traverse it for the most part on foot. I had been looking forward to this trip for many months.
We flew to Brindisi airport and transferred by car to Lecce, the town where our trip commenced. Lecce was already so different than the rest of Italy we explored. Firstly, it was much more Mediterranean in feel with white stoned streets and buildings. It was thrilling.
We enjoyed our evening Aperol Spritz and went to a local recommendation for a very Puglian dinner. The food was delicious and we rolled out of the restaurant a little tipsy and very satiated.
The nightlife in Lecce was hopping with people sitting at tables outside the restaurants or walking the narrow streets visiting the many baroque churches.
Otranto is a beautiful coastal town
We had to make our own way to Otranto which was easy enough by train or taxi after which our walking tour would begin. Otranto, like Lecce but much smaller, had a Mediterranean flair. It was on the coast and was dominated by a castle.
We were following an iPhone app guidebook from Wikinger Reise, a tour company based in Germany. The app had all the offline maps we needed as well as the descriptions and used the phone’s GPS system for navigation.
On this first day, we had a short two hour walk through the city and off into one of the surrounding area’s noted hiking paths. By the time we made it back to the city, we were dripping with sweat and looking forward to a shower. A simple start to get the juices flowing, if not also the sweat glands. We knew not what awaited us.
The tour company would guarantee our luggage made it from place to place when we hit the road. We departed with our backpacks and bottles of water leaving the rest at the hotel and hoping to see it again. In fact, withholding any suspense, we never had issues receiving our suitcases despite once even messing up the tags we tied to the bags.
The tour company had a foolproof method of having each of the next destinations pick up the bags from the previous ones, so as long as I could spell my name, all was good.
Leaving Otranto on our first full day of hiking
Each of the days’ hikes were planned to be 12 km, which we quickly learned was a bit much for us novices.
We weathered the first day wandering along the stunning views of the volcanic coastline as the rising sun baked the surrounding landscape and us with it. When we arrived at the first break, a hotel with a bar along the coast, we ordered some chilled beers to cool us down.
We’ve only just started on our long, hot walk so we’re still smiling
A lighthouse on the coast along our route
We were in no hurry to reach our destination, but the rising sun and lack of shade eventually motivated us to find a short cut. We wended up the hillside to a small group of trees and a slight breeze and lunched on some hoagies we had prepared at a local market before leaving Otranto. We followed a road to a lighthouse after which we rejoined our route again. We arrived in Porto Badisco a short hour later dripping in sweat and craving a cold shower.
We accomplished in 5 and a half hours what our guide book described as a four hour trek, so not really as bad as we anticipated. We were thrilled to get to our next accommodation at Sant’Emilliano, a Tenuta that produced their own fruits and vegetables for the area, and ordered a round of Aperol Spritz. But first we showered off the grime of the day’s hike.
To our entertainment, thunder rolled along the countryside and boomed off the hills all night long and the rain continued into the next morning. As it wasn’t letting up soon, our host, the owner of the tenuta, generously offered to drive us to the next destination in Santa Ceserae Terme, only another 10 km away but a quick twenty minute ride by car. As she was a local, she made it in 10 minutes, curvy roads and all.
Santa Ceserae Terme is known for its health Spa
Of course, as we arrived in the morning at our next hotel, the room wasn’t ready yet so we rested on their veranda and then left our bags and explored the town on foot. It was another beautiful coastal town. Our travel company certainly knew this region well. Once they set up this app and their routes through the region, the program practically ran itself. What a business.
We booked a boat tour as a change of pace
In the hotel we noticed a booklet of tours in the area. A coastal boat ride and swim caught our attention. Since we were the masters of our trip, we could follow the route as closely or loosely as we wished. We booked the boat tour which began in Castro, another coastal city along our walking route, and had the tour company shuttle us to the boat from our hotel. It was great to be on the sea with the wind blowing free and breathing in the salt air. The boat tour included swimming in the Aegean Sea, and we wanted to swim in the coastal waters so … win/win. The shuttle even brought us to our next destination in Marittima after the boat ride, saving us a long uphill hike into the nearby range.
Inside the walled compound of our hotel in Marittima
Up until this point, all the accommodations had been acceptable with decent quality, not what we would normally book ourselves, but part of the tour and fine enough. In Marittima, we wound up in an old fortified castle that had seen better days from a previous owner. The pool was swarming with insects and we just stayed in the room when not out wandering the town. This was a more off the beaten track kind of a place, so not many food offerings, yet we did stumble on a lunch place that had excellent sweets and coffee.
Randy is heading out for another 12km hike all alone
Gitty was still not ready to hit the road, so we split up in Marittima. Gitty arranged to travel with the transport of our luggage while I continued trekking to our next destination of Marina Serra. The walk was relaxing and I spent a good portion of it listening to a book on tape I started in Boston but never had time to listen to. The views on this stretch weren’t as exciting as the first day’s coastal walk, but it was still a pleasant, if not hot, hike. I only encountered a cyclist and a couple with a dog on the entire stretch. At some point Gitty arrived in Marina Serra and found a local coastal bar to get an Aperol Spritz. I made it to Tricase, only about forty minutes walk to our hotel, and stopped for lunch at a beachside restaurant and got my Aperol Spritz as well.
A fantastic view of the coastline on my way to Gitty
I managed the day’s hike in about four hours as advertised and met up with Gitty who showed me her favorite new bar and the natural swimming hole next door. It was a previous boat launch, but now people exclusively used it as a swimming pool. We changed into bathing suits and dove in. Ahhh.
The next morning, we went to another natural pool just a bit further along the street and soaked there for more than an hour before continuing our trip.
Fresh oyster in the seafood appetizer
We had made arrangements to have our luggage driver drop us off halfway in the town of Novaglie from which we would complete our walk to Gagliano del Capo as this was the last day.
In Novaglie we lunched at an upscale beachside restaurant frequented by the yachting community. The food was outstanding and exactly the energy we needed to get through our last day’s slogging.
We set forth to Gagliano and quickly learned that the path was uphill all the way. Rather than following the route prescribed by the app, which would have taken us longer and along steeper coastal paths, we opted to follow the winding streets. Partially for safety and partially because we needed to arrive in Gagliano by 4 pm and google maps warned us that one path would take too long.
Only uphill to freedom
We stayed together and explored nature with our Seek app while wending our way upwards. We arrived at the designated pick up point ten minutes early and our driver was already waiting for us. We happily piled into his air-conditioned SUV and relaxed as he ferried us back to Lecce where we would spend one last night before starting our next adventure. All told, we walked about half of our five day trek through Puglia, but we were happy with every step.
