Distinctive on the map as the high heel of the Italian boot, Pug lia was until recently a fairly sleepy backwater adored by Italian holidaymakers but relatively unknown to visitors from further afield. All that changed in 2000 when budget airlines put Pug lia on direct flig ht routes from northern Europe. First-time visitors, then as now, were completely wowed by the place and kept coming back, for holidays and also to live.
Today, Pug lia is ver y popular yet manag es to retain its serene, uncrowded feel. It remains a rural reg ion with no big cities, unsig htly industry or overdeveloped resorts.
Much of Pug lia is a peninsula, and being embraced by the sea on two sides g ives it the long est coastline of any mainland Italian region. There are 500 miles of seaside here, rang ing from coarse white and fine golden sand to bold rocks and dramatic cliffs.
With the sea all around you, being in Pug lia can feel rather like living on an island – and a Greek island at that. Many visitors quickly pick up on Puglia’s tang ibly Greek look and feel, and this is no coincidence. The reg ion was settled by the seafaring Greeks two and half thousand years ago and remained politically or culturally part of Greece for centuries.
Pug lian dialects, cuisine and building styles still show traces of this Hellenic legacy.
Pug lia is g enerally considered to be the most prosperous and orderly reg ion of southern Italy. The unemployment and crime rates here are very low, the welcomes ver y warm and the sense of community very strong . Pug lians themselves are typically a little quieter and rather more reser ved than the usual exuberant southern stereotype. Even the ground underfoot remains comparatively calm. In fact, the southern half of Pug lia has the lowest risk of seismic activity of anywhere on t he entire Italian mainland.
