The White City is visible for miles: Ostuni spirals up its hill, a dazzling mass of lime-washed houses crowned by the cathedral with its twenty-four-ray rose window. The lime is not whimsy but history: it protected and disinfected, and today it draws the lanes, arches and stairways that are Puglia's favourite photo set.
Around it, the plain of thousand-year-old olive trees descends to Blue Flag sea. The Sant'Oronzo cavalcade in August parades riders in red livery. The masserie among the olives — many now boutique retreats — complete the picture of the Itria Valley meeting the Adriatic.
Near Ostuni
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
