Best of Puglia: Lecce, Alberobello & Matera

Lecce's limestone turns warm gold at sunset. That's the sort of detail that sticks when you travel by rail through Italy's far south — a region most British visitors skim over on the way elsewhere or skip altogether in favour of Tuscany.

Rome, Puglia and Basilicata on the rails

The trip begins in Rome, which barely needs introducing, then heads south into territory that feels quite different from the tourist-trodden north. Puglia is the heel of Italy, Basilicata the instep — flatter, hotter, more agricultural, shaped by centuries of Greek, Norman and Spanish influence rather than Florentine refinement. The rail network down here is serviceable rather than glamorous; the interest lies in what waits at each stop.

Lecce and the baroque south

Lecce is the anchor of the Puglian leg, and it earns its nickname as the Florence of the South. The local limestone — soft, easy to carve — gave seventeenth-century stonemasons licence to go slightly mad, and the results cover the old town in curling cherubs, saints, beasts and foliage. The Basilica di Santa Croce is the showpiece. Beyond the baroque, Lecce is a working university city rather than a museum piece, which is why it stays lively out of season.

Alberobello and Matera

Alberobello is the trulli town — drystone houses with conical roofs, whitewashed, clustered together in a way that looks invented but isn't. It is touristy, particularly in the Rione Monti, and worth seeing anyway. A quieter alternative is the Aia Piccola quarter across the valley, where people still live in their trulli rather than selling souvenirs from them.

Matera sits across the Basilicata border and is the trip's most arresting stop. The sassi — cave dwellings carved into a ravine — were inhabited for millennia, evacuated in the 1950s after being labelled a national shame, and have since been restored into one of Italy's most photogenic places. Walk the old town at dusk, when the stone lights up amber, and you understand why it has been used as a stand-in for Jerusalem in half a dozen films.

Booking and what to expect

This is a guided group trip rather than a self-guided rail adventure, so the logistics — transfers, hotels, rail tickets, sightseeing access — are handled for you. Trains in southern Italy range from sleek Frecciarossa services out of Rome to regional lines that are perfectly comfortable but slower. Expect warm weather across most of the year, a Mediterranean pace, and food that leans heavily on vegetables, seafood, durum wheat pasta and local wines from Primitivo and Negroamaro grapes.

It suits travellers who want a cultural, history-leaning holiday with the walking reduced to old-town wandering, and who are happy to travel in a small group with a tour manager handling the moving parts. Those who prefer to set their own pace, or who already know Italy's greatest hits, will probably want something less structured.