Apulia

Apulia changes its character with every hour of driving. In the north, the Gargano rises as a limestone spur, its slopes dense with holm oak and beech, the forest breaking suddenly into fishing harbours and cliffs above water that turns from turquoise to deep blue. Moving south, the Murge plateau opens into a stony table of wild grass, sheep tracks and farmhouses set back behind dry-stone walls, where the wind has nothing to stop it. Then the Valle d'Itria folds into soft hills, and the grey conical roofs of the trulli appear among the vines. Further down, the Salento peninsula flattens again into red earth and low scrub, and the towns grow warmer and more sociable, their palazzi in Lecce carved with the rich, crowded ornament of the baroque.

A day here can begin in Bari, where the old town is a tangle of lanes so narrow that laundry crosses overhead and women shape orecchiette on their doorsteps, the dough pressed under a blade with a practised flick. Leave the city by late morning and the road climbs into the olive groves, the trunks gnarled and split, the silver undersides of the leaves flashing as the car passes. Ostuni waits on its hill, a whitewashed huddle of stairs and arches that glares in the sun and cools immediately in the alleys. Lunch might be grilled octopus and bread dipped in local olive oil, eaten slowly, because nothing in this part of the country asks to be hurried. In the afternoon, the coast gives its own rewards. Polignano a Mare sits on rock above the sea, with sheer drops and little caves where the swell booms and drains away. Further south, Otranto's cathedral floor is a mosaic of animals and strange cosmic figures, laid by hand centuries ago and still underfoot.

What stays with you is the sense of a region that is working, not performing. The farms still make their own cheese and wine, the fishing boats still come in at dusk, and the old towns still have a grandmother sweeping her step at six in the evening. The coast is part of this, not a separate attraction: a long edge of cliffs, sea caves and bathing rocks where the salt dries white on the skin. Leaving always feels premature. You find yourself looking back at the limestone walls, the trulli on their hill, the white town catching the last of the light, and already planning the route you would take if you came back.