How far is Ostuni from the airport?

Brindisi airport (BDS) is about 35 km, around 35 minutes by car on the SS379. Bari airport (BRI) is about 100 km, an hour and a quarter. Ostuni also has a station on the Bari to Lecce line, in the plain 3 km below the town.

Where do I park for the old town?

The old town is closed to cars. Park along Viale Oronzo Quaranta or in the car parks below Piazza della Libertà and walk up; in August come early or after seven, when the day visitors leave.

How far is Ostuni from the other white towns?

Cisternino is about 15 km, twenty minutes. Locorotondo and Martina Franca are about 25 km, half an hour. Alberobello is about 30 km, forty minutes. All of them are an easy afternoon from a house above Ostuni.

The valleyTown

Ostuni

Ostuni is the white town of Puglia: a hill of lime-washed houses stacked above a plain of ancient olive trees, eight kilometres from the Adriatic. The old town is a maze of stairways and arches around a fifteenth-century cathedral. It is the largest town at the southern end of Valle d’Itria and the one closest to the sea.

The old town

Ostuni is built on three hills, and the old town, the Terra, covers the highest of them inside a ring of walls. Go up on foot from Piazza della Libertà, the long square where the town meets its column of Sant’Oronzo, and let the streets carry you: they climb in steps, pass under arches that hold the houses apart, and open without warning onto a terrace with the whole plain and the sea below. At the top is the cathedral, late Gothic with a rose window and three curved gables, and beside it the bishop’s palace joined to the seminary by a bridge. Come after five, when the day trippers have gone down and the walls turn from white to gold.

The plain of olives

Between Ostuni and the coast lies the Piana degli Ulivi Monumentali, a plain of olive trees that have stood for a thousand years and more. Their trunks are twisted into shapes that look carved; the oldest are protected by law and named. The roads across the plain pass old masserie, some of them now producing oil you can taste at the door, and end at the sea. It is the walk or the drive to take on your first evening.

The sea

Ostuni has its own stretch of coast, a quarter of an hour below the town. Rosa Marina and Costa Merlata are rocky coves with clear water; Torre Pozzelle is a wild sandy bay beneath a watchtower, with no facilities and no charge. West of them, at Carovigno, the Torre Guaceto reserve keeps four kilometres of dunes and shallow water free of building. Our beach guide goes through them one by one.

Eating and the feast

The town eats late and outdoors. In the old town the tables fill the stairways, and the cooking is the coast’s: raw fish, orecchiette with turnip tops, the local burrata, and the new oil in autumn. On the last days of August the town holds its feast for Sant’Oronzo, three days ending with the Cavalcata, a procession of riders in red and white through the streets. It is the one time of year the old town is fuller than it can hold, and worth it.

Good to know

How far is Ostuni from the airport?: Brindisi airport (BDS) is about 35 km, around 35 minutes by car on the SS379. Bari airport (BRI) is about 100 km, an hour and a quarter. Ostuni also has a station on the Bari to Lecce line, in the plain 3 km below the town.
Where do I park for the old town?: The old town is closed to cars. Park along Viale Oronzo Quaranta or in the car parks below Piazza della Libertà and walk up; in August come early or after seven, when the day visitors leave.
How far is Ostuni from the other white towns?: Cisternino is about 15 km, twenty minutes. Locorotondo and Martina Franca are about 25 km, half an hour. Alberobello is about 30 km, forty minutes. All of them are an easy afternoon from a house above Ostuni.

Cisternino

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