Polignano a Mare

And I would love to show you the great monuments of this beautiful region.

But we're by no means finished with Puglia, because in my next podcast, we're going to talk about one of the most popular destinations in Puglia today, and that is the town of Polignano al Mare, with its breathtaking limestone cliffs that descend right down into this beautiful sapphire blue water.

It's really one of the most beautiful places that God ever created on his green earth.

And we'll talk about this little town and its traditions and its history in my next podcast.

It is a region of whitewashed hilltop towns, ancient olive groves, long stretches of coastline, and a food culture that people travel across oceans to taste.

The website mentions destinations like Alberobello, with its famous Trulli houses, Polignano a Mare, perched on dramatic cliffs above the Adriatic, Locorotondo, a village of circular, gleaming streets, and the wider Salento Peninsula.

If you have never been, imagine a part of Italy that feels slower, warmer, and a little more personal than the places everyone puts on their first itinerary.

That is the home base of Lux Sule, and having an agency that lives and breathes the region matters because the best parts of Puglia are rarely the ones you find on page one of a search.

So for my last week in Italy, I was in a place I hadn't been before, which is Puglia.

Specifically, I was in Polignano a Mare, which is, like, in Bari.

It's the back of the boot and the coast, if you're thinking of Italy.

And it's super cool because, you know, Italy's so regional, and so there's a lot of, lot of seafood, a lot of foods I hadn't had.

Now, an apartment covers two genuinely different experiences in Puglia, and the difference matters more than most listings let on.

Old town apartments, one of the defining experiences of Puglia, put you inside the centro storico, Ostuni, Lecce, Otranto's old quarter, Polignano's old town.

Usually in centuries-old building With all the charm and all the limitations that implies.

You're walking distance, or you're within walking distance from everything, which is the entire point.

And, uh, that is still very, very possible.

Like, for example, when you go to Puglia, a whole lot of people are going to Bari and, and to Polignano because it's so beautiful.

And I say you-

Mm

And I think that idea of recording however we can is actually our way of saying, paying attention to the world and being really in the world, which I think is one of the most important phases of any writer's story and life, or anyone's life really.

But, but to be in it completely and to really embrace it and observe and, and, and notice things, 'cause I, in-- you might remember in the book when I'm traveling and I'm in Polignano a Mare, and the, the two Italian [laughs] boys that are, um, that I've adopted into my circle, they're so s- perplexed by me, um, you know, documenting everything with video.

They're just like, "Ah, we see with the eyes," you know? [laughs] "We don't, eh, it's not right." And I would, you know...

And I agree, I agree with them, but I could never understand why I needed to record.