The surrounding areas....Southwards
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Bari
Bari is a small lively and busy metropolis; it is an important door to the east and home to the Fiera del Levante. From a historical and architectonic point of view, the old town is extremely important with its maze of streets and terraced houses that very often come to an end in small courtyards. We recommend a walk along the town walls and a visit to the Cathedral, the Basilica of San Nicola and the Norman – Swabian Castle.
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Bitonto
The cathedrals of Bitonto and Ruvo (15 and 12 kms from Molfetta respectively) are not to be missed.
Bitonto, a town in the province of Bari, is known as the Olive town due to the large extensions of olive groves that surround it. As a matter of fact, the oil from Bitonto was already renowned in the 18th century in Venice where it was appreciated more than any other oil in the whole peninsula. The old town is notable for its numerous churches, the finest of which being the Cathedral, the most complete example of Apulian Romanesque style. In addition, tone can find renaissance buildings such as Palazzo Sylos Calò and Palazzo Sylos-Vulpano.
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Ruvo
Ruvo di Puglia, inhabited by the Peucetii was already a flourishing town between the 4th and 3rd century BC and in the 2nd Century B.C it kept up trade and cultural relations with the Magna Graecia, Etruria and Greece. The town became an important economic centre basing its wealth on the trading of oil and wine and developing a thriving collateral business of earthenware as witnessed by many of the relics found in the countryside around the town.
The Cathedral of Ruvo di Puglia is one of the most well known examples of Apulian Romanesque style. It was built in the first half of the 12th century and has undergone numerous modifications over the years.
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Valle d'Itria
This unique landscape is made up by the murgia of the trulli, where these age old buildings lift their stone pinnacles to the sky. The trulli are age old cone-shaped inhabitations made of dry stone, that is to say, no cement of mortar was used in building. The largest group of trulli can be found in the quadrangle formed by the towns of Martina Franca, Locorotondo, Alberobello and Cisternino and better known as the Valle d'Itria. In the monumental area of Alberobello there are more than one thousand trulli.
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Ostuni
Ostuni is called “The white town” due to its colour-wash painted houses, all set on a little hill not far from the sea. The old inhabited area of the town is a fairytale maze of little streets, steps and arches, all lined with characteristic whitewashed houses, old churches, convents and noble buildings. The Cathedral with its beautiful late gothic façade stands out in all its beauty on top of the hill, overlooking the town.
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Castellana Grotte
In Castellana Grotte we can find the largest speleological complex in Italy, open all year round. A long path along deep caverns and underground passages with thousands of stalactites and stalagmites, formed over thousands of years through limestone erosion.
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Lecce
Lecce is the “capital” of the Baroque style, whose shapes, etched in typical local stone, flourish throughout the old town. The most emblematic monument of Baroque Lecce is the Basilica of Santa Croce. In piazza Sant’Oronzo stands the homonymous pillar, which once may have been placed at the end of the Via Appia in Brindisi. In the same square on can find the Roman Amphitheatre and the 15th century Palazzo del Sedile. Piazza del Duomo with its spectacular baroque scenery is well worth visiting.
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Otranto
Leaving Lecce we head south on the SS 611 state road to admire the magnificent town of Otranto, the easternmost town in Italy, well known for its beautiful coastline which attracts thousands of tourists every year and its old town, surrounded by the age old walls. In the romanesque Cathedral, the Martyr’s chapel preserves the bones of about 800 Christians who were beheaded by the Turks in 1480 for refusing to recant their faith.
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Local area 
