May to mid June, or September into mid October. That is the answer, it is not particularly close, and the rest of this guide is really an explanation of why. Ostuni has a specific problem that shapes the whole question…
Archives for August 2026
Getting to Ostuni and the Best Day Trips
Ostuni is easy to reach and slightly awkward to arrive at, and the gap between those two things catches a lot of people out. The trains are frequent and cheap. The problem is what happens when you step off one….
Where to Eat and Drink in Ostuni
Puglian food is peasant cooking that became fashionable without changing much, which is the best thing that can happen to a regional cuisine. It is vegetable-heavy, bread-heavy, olive-oil-heavy and much simpler than the cooking of northern Italy, and Ostuni does…
An Ostuni Itinerary: 1 to 2 Days
Ostuni is small enough to see in a day and good enough to deserve two, and the difference between the two versions is almost entirely about what time you are in the old town. The town has a rhythm. It…
Staying in a Masseria near Ostuni
The masseria is the reason a lot of people come to this part of Puglia without quite being able to explain why, and it is the single most distinctive thing about staying near Ostuni. It is also the decision most…
Where to Stay in Ostuni
Where you sleep in Ostuni matters more than it does in most towns this size, because the two realistic options produce two genuinely different holidays. You can stay inside the old town, in the white lanes on the hill, and…
The Best Things to Do in Ostuni
Ostuni is not a town with a checklist, and if you arrive determined to tick off monuments you will be finished by lunchtime and faintly disappointed. What it has instead is a whitewashed old town on a hill that is…
The Complete Guide to Ostuni
You see Ostuni long before you arrive at it. That is the whole point of the place, and it is worth arranging your arrival so that it happens properly. The town sits on a hill above a plain of olive…
Polignano a Mare, and the Hour Before Nine
The cove fills by nine. I was told this twice before I came, and I believed neither of them, because people exaggerate about crowds the way they exaggerate about heat, mostly to make you grateful for the advice afterwards. So…
Polignano a Mare Boat Tours and the Sea Caves
A Polignano a Mare boat tour is the one thing here I would tell you not to skip. The cliff the town is built on is hollow, riddled with sea caves cut by the Adriatic over millennia, and you cannot…
The Best Beaches in Polignano a Mare
The best beaches in Polignano a Mare are not really beaches. They are coves, cut into limestone, floored with pebbles or rock, with water that goes deep almost immediately. If you arrive expecting long sand you will be disappointed, and…
The Best Photo Spots in Polignano a Mare
The best photo spots in Polignano a Mare are not a secret, which is the whole problem. Half of Puglia’s tourist photography comes out of this one town, a white cliff town built over sea caves with a turquoise cove…
