Loop from Bari

01 Church

Trani Cathedral

Cattedrale di Trani

Begun in 1099 in Trani stone, a pink so pale it is almost white, the cathedral stands alone at the water's edge. Walk all the way round it, from the massive transept facing the sea to the pointed arch of the bell tower. Its bronze door, made by Barisano da Trani in 1175, is kept inside, with a copy at the portal.

02 Museum

Castel del Monte, Apulia

Castel del Monte

You'll spot it from afar on its hill in the Murge, an octagon flanked by eight towers that are themselves octagonal. Frederick II ordered its construction in 1240, and its geometry earned it UNESCO listing in 1996. A prison for Manfred's sons, then a refuge for shepherds and brigands, it was later stripped of its marble.

03 Church

Altamura Cathedral

Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta

From the square in front, look for the line where the stonework changes: that is where the first façade of the cathedral commissioned by Frederick II stood. As a palatine church, it answered only to the sovereign, and its rebuilding after the collapse of 1316 owes much to the master builders of Bitonto. Almost everywhere, its openings soar in pointed arches.

04 Archaeology

Sassi di Matera

The Sasso Caveoso and the Sasso Barisano, hollowed out of limestone, remained inhabited from the Bronze Age until their evacuation, ordered by the state in the 1950s. Make your way down through the arcades and stepped lanes, between Baroque façades and caves. Carlo Levi compared them to Dante's Inferno, yet channels here fed up to seven cisterns per house.

05 Church

Matera Cathedral

Cattedrale di Matera

Completed in 1270 on the highest spur of the Civita, the cathedral towers over the two Sassi of Matera. A sixteen-spoke rose window, topped by the Archangel Michael, orders its Romanesque façade, and its bell tower reaches 52 metres. On the right-hand side, look for the lion door, guarded by two crouching stone beasts.

06 Church

San Pietro Caveoso

Chiesa dei Santi Pietro e Paolo

Go down to the square of San Pietro Caveoso, at the foot of the rock crowned by the Madonna dell'Idris. A first church cut into the rock preceded the building of 1218, given a Baroque façade with three portals and a bell tower in the 17th century. Inside, a painted wooden ceiling hides the tufa vault.

07 Museum

Cripta del Peccato Originale

Carved into the Picciano ravine around the 8th or 9th century, this rock church sheltered a shepherd and his animals before its rediscovery in 1963. On the back wall, read the Creation and Original Sin, painted by the Painter of the Flowers of Matera. These frescoes have earned it the nickname of the Sistine Chapel of rock art.

08 Village

Alberobello

To avoid the royal tax, the counts of Conversano imposed dry-stone houses without mortar here: so the trulli were born, listed as a World Heritage Site in 1996. Stroll through the only district built entirely of trulli, beneath their conical stone roofs. Casa D'Amore, the first two-storey trullo, dates from 1797.

09 Village

Locorotondo

Locorotondo owes its name to its round historic centre, with whitewashed houses arranged in concentric rings. The cummerse, houses with steep dry-stone roofs, stand beside the mother church of San Giorgio, built from 1790 to 1825. Walk along Via Nardelli, nicknamed the Lungomare even though it overlooks only the Itria Valley.

10 Church

Basilica di San Martino

Begun in 1747 on a Romanesque church shaken by the earthquake of 1743, the basilica of Martina Franca raises a Rococo façade carved by Giuseppe Morgese and his sons. At its centre, you can make out Saint Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar, in high relief. The project, designed by Giovanni Mariani, was not completed until 1785.

11 Village

Cisternino

Slip through the whitewashed centre of Cisternino, which overlooks the Itria Valley and its scattering of trulli. Beneath the Romanesque church of San Nicola, excavations have revealed the remains of a small Christian sanctuary built around the year 1000. In the evening, round the corners of the lanes, the butchers light their embers and grill the meat chosen by their customers.

12 Village

Ostuni

Approach across the plain of olive trees to see Ostuni appear, white with lime, on its hills a few kilometres from the Adriatic. In a nearby cave lay, for some 28,000 years, the "woman of Ostuni", a young mother close to giving birth, her head covered with hundreds of shells. Her cast is kept in the former convent of the Monacelle, in the heart of the old town.

13 Archaeology

Anfiteatro Romano di Lecce

Lean over from Piazza Sant'Oronzo to see the Roman amphitheatre, only a third of which has been brought to light, the rest sleeping beneath the square, its buildings and a church. It could hold some 25,000 spectators. Its tiers resurfaced in the early 20th century, during construction work for the Bank of Italy.

14 Church

Basilica of Santa Croce, Lecce

Basilica di Santa Croce

Begun in 1549, Santa Croce kept Lecce's great architects busy for two centuries, up to Cesare Penna's rose window. Below the balcony, look for the telamons, fantastic beasts and grotesque figures, then, to the left of the rose window, Antonio Zimbalo's discreet self-portrait. Inside, a coffered ceiling of gilded walnut covers the central nave.

15 Cave

Grotta della Poesia

16 Church

Otranto Cathedral

Cattedrale di Otranto

Walk across the mosaic that Pantaleone laid from 1163 to 1165, where the Tree of Life bears biblical scenes and Alexander the Great hoisted into the sky by two griffins. Founded in 1068, Otranto cathedral witnessed the massacre of 1480 by the Turks. In the Chapel of the Martyrs, seven cabinets hold the relics of the 800 victims.

17 Monument

Punta Palascia Lighthouse

Faro di Punta Palascia

On the Cape of Otranto, the easternmost point of Italy, this 32-metre white tower has kept watch since 1867 where the channel is narrowest. Switched off in 1970, the lighthouse was relit in 2008 and now houses a museum of the sea. Watch here for the first dawn of the year, which Italy sees first from this cape.

18 Cave

Grotta Zinzulusa

Raise your head beneath the stalactites that hang like rags and gave the Zinzulusa its name, from the dialect word zinzuli. Between Castro and Santa Cesarea Terme, the cave widens into a smooth-walled chamber 25 metres high. It is also home to species found only here, including crustaceans discovered in 1923.

19 Monument

Capo Santa Maria di Leuca Lighthouse

Faro di Capo Santa Maria di Leuca

At the tip of the Salento, the white six-sided tower of the Leuca lighthouse rises 48 metres above the keeper's house. Watch at nightfall for its three white flashes, which sweep back over the sea every 15 seconds. Its light has shone since 1866 and reaches 24 nautical miles.

20 Castle

Castello di Gallipoli

Almost surrounded by the sea, the fortress watches over Gallipoli's island old town, with three round towers and a polygonal one at the corners of its rectangle. A letter from Pope Gregory the Great already mentions it in 599. Approach through the fish market, built against its façade after the moats were filled in between 1870 and 1879.

21 Church

Basilica di Santa Caterina d'Alessandria

Look up at the three-gabled façade: its portal rests on lions, and its rose window spreads fine rays. Inside, frescoes painted between the 14th century and the 1440s cover every wall. The treasury holds a finger of St Catherine which, legend has it, Raimondello Orsini brought back from Sinai.

22 Archaeology

Gnatia

Egnazia

North of Fasano, the ruins of Egnazia recall a port city crossed by the Via Traiana. Spot the mighty Messapian walls, then the necropolis and its chamber tombs decorated with frescoes. Horace names it in the satire on his journey to Brindisi, and an ancient pottery style bears its name.

23 Castle

Castello di Monopoli

Completed in 1552 for Charles V on the small headland of Punta Pinna, Monopoli castle takes in a Roman gate, itself set on Messapian walls. In its basement survives the church of San Nicola in Pinna, founded in the 10th century. Walk along its pentagonal bastions to the embrasures cut just above the water of the harbour.

24 Cave

Castellana Caves

Grotte di Castellana

It all begins with the Grave, a sixty-metre chasm open to the sky, from which Franco Anelli set out in 1938 to explore the network. Follow the underground chambers, past animal-like stalagmites and a corridor reddened by iron. The Grotta Bianca, which Luigi Einaudi called the most beautiful in the world, gleams with dazzling white formations.

25 Village

Polignano a Mare

Cross on foot the bridge of the Via Traiana, still in use, spanning the Lama Monachile, the deep cleft that opens west of the old town. Polignano a Mare sits on a rocky spur suspended above the Adriatic, its houses right on the edge of the drop. Beneath them, the cliff is riddled with sea caves where the swell crashes.

26 Church

Basilica of Saint Nicholas, Bari

Basilica di San Nicola

In 1087, sailors brought the relics of St Nicholas back from Myra, and Bari built for them this model of Apulian Romanesque. Its sober façade stands between two truncated towers, a few steps from the sea. On the side, look on the Lions' Doorway for a battle some link to the Arthurian cycle.