Rude Travel by Vir Sanghvi: Puglia is all charm, no crowd

Italy, on the other hand, will serve Indians the pastas we love (many of them “pure veg”) and most of the pizzas sold in northern Italy are almost as bad as the ones you get in Mumbai or Gurgaon. Small wonder then that if you go to Rome and hop on the bus for a tour of the Vatican, you will see Indians. In Milan too you will find lots of bemused Indian tourists complaining that no one will tell them where exactly the Colosseum is. (It’s in Rome.)

But it’s hard to push Indians to explore much more of what must be the world’s loveliest country. I speak as some one who goes there at least once a year, and each time I come back, I have difficulty telling people about the parts of Italy I visited: “Taormina? Is that near Milan?” “Napoli? Isn’t that a kind of food?” Or “Emilia-Romagna? That’s a suburb of Rome, isn’t it?”

About the only touristy place people seem to know is Venice, and they get very angry when I tell them that Venetians don’t want them to come: The city is being destroyed by too many tourists.

But if you want to skip the obvious Italian sights and have no interest in only looking at the places where lions ate up Christians, then the beauty of Italy, its art, its history and culture is one of the great joys of the world.

This year, my wife and I decided to tour Puglia for nearly two weeks. We based ourselves at one of the region’s top but most unusual hotels: Borgo Egnazia. This is a mock Puglian village created by an old family from the region.

Puglia needed to build a grand hotel to attract upmarket tourists. The family, which already owns a small traditional hotel, decided that a large, modern structure would be an eyesore. So, they built a massive complex of rooms and villas over acres of gardens in traditional Puglian style. Inevitably, they were criticised in Italy for trying to recreate the past, but that shouldn’t worry Indians. (What are the Vilas hotels except for re-creations?)

And I loved it. Relaxed and stylish and with a first-rate front office team, it really was a world-class hotel with good restaurants, one of which my Gujarati brethren will be pleased to know, has a Michelin star and only serves vegetarian food.

As lovely as Borgo Egnazia was, we used it as a base to explore the region. We drove to Polignano a Mare by the edge of the water and watched the cream houses merge gently into the sea. The following day, we drove to Monopoli to see what must be, even by Italian standards, one of the most stunning cathedrals.

Each day brought a new adventure. A trip to Bari, capital of the Puglia region, led to the discovery that while Italy is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic there is also a Christian minority that belongs to various orthodox churches and does not recognise the authority of the Pope. At Bari Cathedral, both sides are allowed to pray.

The highlight of our stay, however, was the day we spent in the spectacular ancient city of Matera on the other side of the river from Puglia.

Matera dates back to the 10th millennium BC, when people started out living in the caves that characterise the city. But over thousands of years, it was conquered by Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Spaniards and then, finally, by James Bond.

It is a spectacular city on a hill that rises out of nowhere, but would have remained largely unknown had it not been used as a location in the last James Bond film. We went before the season had started, so we enjoyed ourselves, but I gather that when the American holidays start the city can be overrun by 007 fans.

We moved to Lecce for the second part of our trip. Lecce is one of Italy’s great historical towns. You wander through little lanes thinking to yourself “this must have been exactly the same 500 years ago!”

It is a town of such charm and beauty that even if we had done nothing else I would have been content to wake up late, stroll down the streets and finally settle down at a pavement cafe for a plate of orecchiette pasta and a mug of the local draught beer.

It helped that we were occupying a small palazzo in the centre of Lecce. In theory the Palazzo Bozzi Corso was a tiny hotel, but for much of our stay we were the only guests and behaved as such. In the mornings we would wander down to the kitchen where a delightful local lady would expertly cook breakfast for us with freshly laid eggs from local chickens and pancetta from the neighbourhood butcher.

I had to be prodded to leave Lecce and get out to see more of Puglia but I am glad I did. On a late morning, my wife took me to the coastal town of Gallipoli and we plunged into the historical centre. I had just about begun eating my fresh sea urchins when we realised something big was happening.

Church bells were ringing and the town’s population had gathered. It turned out that this was the day, just before Easter, when they took the statue of the Virgin Mary on a procession through the town.

It was the sort of procession you mostly see in American mafia movies, and you watch apprehensively because you know, that at some stage shots will ring out.

But this was the real thing, here in the real Italy and not in New York’s Little Italy or on some Hollywood backlot. There was such a potent mixture of devotion and joy in the air with a local band playing happy songs that we followed the procession for much of its journey.

There is an Italy the world knows well, with the golden splendour of the Vatican, the fancy designers of Milan and the great hotels of the Amalfi coast. I love that Italy.

But there is also another Italy, less grand, more charming, not so well known and full of beauty. I am beginning to think that perhaps I love this second Italy even more. Because it is less famous abroad, it is less crowded and inevitably, also much cheaper to visit than Florence or Venice.

And it’s real. Full of real people and their very real lives.

From HT Brunch, May 3, 2025

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