Apulien, Tagestour: Bari, Trulli von Alberobello, Castel del Monte und Sassi von Matera

We have just arrived back to our accommodation after 12 hours with the wonderful Vito. I cannot tell you what a pleasure today was. It is impossible to summarise the beauty and history of the Puglia region but Vito most certainly can. And he does it with humour, knowledge and most of all passion. The Sassi is amazing, the Castel astounding, Bari is so old world get vibrantly alive and the clash of the old and the new is intriguing. But the Trulli oh the Trulli were the highlight for me. I cannot recommend this tour more highly. Thank Vito for an amazing day.

I have to break this tour into two parts, the sites visited and the driver/tour guide. The sites are must see. Bari is a unique city on the coast. The history of the other sites an the tour is outstanding. They are everything you can imagine after reading about them. The driver/tour guide on the other hand was terrible. As a guide he did now convey very much information about the history of the sites. He spoke at lengths of the present day situation in Puglia. As a driver he was dangerous. He was the worst of what you hear about Italian drivers. He hit speed of 150 km/h in 90 km/h zones, sometimes using his cell phone to show pictures of his sister. If he was not talking, he had the radio volume so high you could not ask questions and turned it down only if he wanted to make a comment. Much of the drives between sites was done with the radio at full blast. Perhaps we should have conveyed our feelings about these issues, but we were a long way from our hotel in Bari, and was not sure of his reaction. With a competent driver/guide I would recommend this tour highly. It is a long day, but the sites are worth it.

This was an amazing tour that took us to many of the highlights of Bari. Our tour guide, Vito, presented the tour in an exceptionally interesting and informative way. Well versed on the Bari area. This was a full day tour that covered it all.

This is a difficult review to write. We had booked this full day tour only a day before we arrived at Bari and had it confirmed for an 8am start for what was an 8 hour tour. The guide rang us at our hotel at 8pm the night before the tour to say that because we had booked so late, he could not pick us up at 8 but if we wanted to go ahead with the tour he could start at 2pm. As it was that or no tour and we had no More time in Puglia we agreed. On the day he rang us from reception at about 1.20pm to say he was there. All of the above was very unsatisfactory but we agreed not to make any issue and just enjoy the experience. Overall the tour was interesting and enjoyable and as we were the only tourists we sat in the front of our guide's mini bus/people mover. Castel del Monte was interesting but took too long because you need to catch a special bus from the car park to the castle and on the way back we had to miss two buses because they were overcrowded with big tour groups. That put us behind schedule and we arrived at Matera close to dusk. Matera is Magic and we would have liked to spend more time there but obviously were were running against the clock. Within 30 minutes of leaving Matera it was dark and we assumed the trip would be cut short but found ourselves in Alberobello about an hour later. Fortunately, the truly area was still alight and alive with people which in itself gave a different perspective from seeing it in daylight. But again, by this time it was about 8pm and we still had an hour's drive back to Bari, which we did at a rather fast speed, or so it seemed to us but maybe that was normal. We arrived back at our hotel At about 9pm. It had been a long and tiring day but we were glad we got to see Matea and Alborabello especially. In summary , our guide was clearly passionate and committed to his region Puglia and was informative and good company. However, I think the itinerary is too ambitious and would suggest that the castle be deleted.