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For the lover of ancient history, Puglia holds a particular thrill. Sure, there are Roman remains here like everywhere else in Italy. But it’s the legacy of ancient Greece (of which Puglia and the rest of southern Italy was an integral part) which is most stimulating – not necessarily in physical relics, but in subtle features like language and lifestyle, and in a strong sense of proximity. The Hellenic world never feels very far away from Puglia. The baby-blue sky and dazzling light are exactly those of the Ionian islands and the Greek mainland just 100 miles or so across the water. Puglia’s pale rocky coast and inland landscapes often look Greek, Greek village building styles hold sway in certain places, and Greek elements crop up in Puglian cuisine. Even the people are arguably a little Greek in temperament – intensely hospitable like all Mediterraneans, but a touch quieter and less flamboyant than many other southern Italians. Put on the map
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Venice Allan of We Love Salento disagrees that Puglia's far south is deserted out of season. “Salento is actually a fairly well-heeled area with some great upmarket inland towns,” she says. “Places like Maglie, Nardo, Galatina, Tricase and of course Lecce are especially lively during the winter as during the high season all the locals flee to the beach. Salento is more suitable for foreigners wanting to get into the local vibe rather than create an ex-pat community. It is interesting to note that so far all the celebrities investing in Puglia, such as Helen Mirren, Mickey Rourke, Stuart Copeland and even Mikhail Gorbachev have all chosen to buy in the Salento area.”
Good-value hunting
Despite its popularity with Brits, the Itria Valley area isn’t the priciest part of Puglia. Anna Maroutian of Interitalia notes that prices are highest on the the Salento seaside – because of the appeal of beach properties here to northern Italians and foreigners. She recommends that buyers seeking good value currently look immediately south of the Itria Valley – between Brindisi and Taranto, especially in the countryside around Carovigno and San Vito dei Normanni.
Nick Carlucci of Buyahouse–italy.com concurs. He says that “San Vito dei Normanni and Carovigno are really putting themselves on the map at the moment. There are custom-built properties being developed round here on individual plots – fantastic homes that link the modern and the traditional, with vaulted ceilings and dry stone walls really giving the wow factor.” He adds, reassuringly, that “the planning board of both San Vito and Carovigno are regulating permissions to ensure Puglia does not become the next Spain!” In the same locality, Nick points out that “there are very cheap towns like Oria where you can buy an apartment for the price of a Ford Mondeo. Apartments like these are a good investment and provide a great holiday home with little or no maintenance.”
| As for Puglia’s main cities, David Eidlestein of the estate agency Firefly notes that “Properties in Bari, Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto have soared in price over the past five years and the feeling among estate agents is that they have probably peaked.” He adds that “Demand remains high and prices continue to grow in the historic centres of desirable smaller towns like Polignano, Monopoli, Ostuni and Gallipoli, with foreigners and locals keeping the market strong. Well-priced town centre properties are becoming increasingly hard to come by and the best places for bargains tend to be in the little-known towns and countryside areas.” |
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Building fashion
Disappointingly for anyone who fancies living in an ‘oversized teapot’ or ‘a Smurf’s cottage’, as they have variously been described, Puglia’s distinctive cone-topped trulli homes are no longer thought to offer particularly good value for money. “A trullo is expensive to restore, and may have limited extension possibility,” as Alan Toothill of Trulliland points out. So, is it fair to say that the craze for these cute little buildings has passed? Kamran Mirshahi of Apulia Properties thinks it might have. “Fewer buyers are after trulli now,” he says. “They are great for short holidays because they’re charming and unusual, but a villa is much better value for money. A villa has bigger windows and is more spacious.”
Nick Carlucci of Buyahouse-italy.com has no doubts. “The main change in Puglia’s property market,” he says, “is that trulli are less requested now than before. Three years ago there was a boom in trulli because of their low prices and traditional look. Now people are more likely to be looking for traditional villas, for lamie and masserie. These properties normally provide better value for money than trulli. I think the way forward for the market is custom-built properties. We have been working with local craftsmen to build vaulted ceilings, new villas and traditional style masserie for our clients.”
A quick synopsis of Puglia’s typical country building styles is useful at this point to better understand agents’ property descriptions. The trullo we’ve already understood as a rural, cone-topped home. It often has more than one cone, and sometimes a boxy casale or simple house attached. The lamia is a small, flat-roofed cottage, and the masseria is a large, foursquare farmhouse. The tenuta is a rambling country estate or stately home – low-built and spread out over a wide area, with typical Puglian flat roofs. Masserie are proud and attractive buildings which have proven quite popular with the upper end of the foreign-buyer market. They’re not cheap, with an unrestored version asking €300,000 on average and usually requiring about €200,000 of work to bring it up to a state of high comfort. A significant number of Puglia’s masserie have been converted into hotels or B&Bs in recent years, and there is some EU funding available to assist with this.
Artists in stone
The final word on Puglian property has to go to its builders and craftsmen – perhaps especially to the region’s stone masons. British buyers who have restored a property in Puglia are inevitably bursting with praise for the dedication and skills of the builders who helped to realize their dream. You can expect a tremendously high standard of work here. In particular, the region excels in its meticulously-wrought, vaulted stone ceilings. They seem to be everywhere – even in the smallest lamia. So don’t expect a flat roof outside to mean a flat ceiling inside!
www.sispropertyandtourism.co.uk
[All quoted prices accurate in 2008]
The Gargano Promontory
Jutting out from northern Puglia like a sharp anklebone on the high heel of Italy, the beautiful Gargano Promontory is a sun-seeker’s and nature-lover’s paradise. Its white beaches and tranquil lagoons teem with birdlife, while its eleven thousand hectares of hilly ancient forest are filled with deer and other wild mammals. The whole promontory was declared a national park more than a decade ago, guarding it against future development. The area is well-loved by northern Italians, who flock to the rocky eastern tip of the promontory in high summer, filling charming resorts like Vieste, Mattinata and Péschici. Very few British or other non-Italians buy property here – perhaps because the area is quite a way from Puglia’s airports and is fairly deserted out of season. It’s possible to make good rental returns on the promontory, however. Summer tourists are very reliable, but there’s also the possibility of renting to the many visitors who make religious pilgrimages to inland spots such as Mont Sant’Angelo and San Giovanni Rotondo.
Foggia to Bari
In complete contrast to the undulating terrain of the adjacent Gargano Promontory, the landscape around the small, workaday city of Foggia is table-flat and highly fertile – bristling with endless wheat fields, making some of Italy’s best pasta. The homes in and around Foggia tend to be low and solid-built – testament to the fact that this is the only part of Puglia prone to occasional earthquakes. The land grows hilly again as you move west and south of Foggia, and there are some very attractive but rarely-visited villages set on high amidst the trees. Lucera is a recommended spot if you’re in these parts. Moving south along the coast, there are some pleasant little towns – Trani, for example, which is quite chic and prosperous. And then you reach Bari, Puglia’s capital city and hard-working rival to industrious Bríndisi a few miles further south. Bari’s ‘cittàvecchia’ is a magical, kasbah-like jumble of streets, but there’s little else here to draw the tourists. Bari’s evening passaggiata is performed with much gusto, to be sure, and the city has some very colourful festivals. But for general pleasantness and safety, Bríndisi probably just has the edge as a city.
Bari to Bríndisi – the coast
South of Bari, Puglia’s coast ranges from craggy cliffs to flat, fertile scrubland and back again – all punctuated by short, pale strands of inviting sand. Polignano a Mare is a delightful spot, its scuffed medieval centre perched on a line of modest cliffs. Further south, and 5km inland, the ‘white city’ of Ostuni has recently seen lots of interest from British buyers and visitors. Ostuni’s striking centro storico is a pile of white buildings set on high overlooking thousands of olive trees stretching down to the sea. From afar, it looks like a fairytale city of some kind. Close-up, it looks uncannily like a Greek Cycladic-Island village. Small-sized, but with good restaurants and a particularly lively calendar of public events, Ostuni offers a great lifestyle. Continuing down the coast, you arrive at Bríndisi, a port-city which has thrived since ancient times thanks to its superb natural harbour. Very much a working town, Bríndisi is nonetheless a pleasant place to be – with great local food and an especially exuberant passeggiata every evening. The recent pedestrianization of Bríndisi city centre, and the moving of the international ferry ports a few miles out of town, have both massively boosted local pride and eradicated street crime. This is a city on the up!
Bari to Bríndisi – inland
The hinterland behind the Bari-to-Bríndisi coast forms Puglia’s hottest property area. The green, undulating Itria Valley and its surrounds have seen the majority of British-buyer interest ever since direct flights to Puglia were introduced in 2004. Cute, cone-roofed trulli homes are scattered across the countryside in great abundance, and lovely little towns blossom here too – towns which remain active year-round rather than shutting up shop in the winter as some more touristy spots are wont to do. Fasano, Ostuni, Locorotondo and Martina Franca are all recommended. Property is still quite affordable across this area, despite its popularity, and prices are expected to go on slowly rising. On average, you’ll pay about €250,000 for a good-sized country home with land. Particular value-for money can currently be found buying just to the southeast of the Itria Valley – between Bríndisi and Taranto. As you move further back from Puglia’s Adriatic coast towards its Ionian coast, the gentle landscape begins to break into crags and grottoes. Either side of industrial Táranto, there are some delightful white beaches backed by pine woods.
The Salentine Peninsula
The beautiful heel-tip of Italy, the Salentine Peninsula is roughly everything below a line drawn between Taranto and Brindisi. The attractive coast down here is rocky and cliff-bound, and the sea lapping it is particularly clean, calm and shallow – making the area a great spot for summer holidays. A few low-key beach resorts serve the occasional stretch of sand, but elsewhere the rugged, uninhabited spaces are thrillingly empty and elemental. If you’re after the best beaches, start by looking either side of Gallipoli. Northern Italians have long sought holiday villas on the Salentine Peninsula, so the property market is quite well-developed. Over the last couple of years, a few British and other non-Italians buyers have been drawn to this part of Puglia too - including some celebrities. As you’d expect, prices are highest beside the water, and fall as you move inland. There are some appealing little towns to consider down here, such as Otranto, Castro and Galatina. Lecce, meanwhile, is a stupendous small city radiant with pale-coloured Baroque buildings. Note that the Salentine Peninsula coast can be quiet in the winter and the whole area can feel a little remote compared to the rest of Puglia. For some, this edge-of-nowhere feeling is part of the charm.
Our Home in Puglia
David and Sally Body currently divide their time between the northern tip of Britain and the southern tip of Italy. They’re based in John O’Groats, and bought a three-bedroom holiday home set in olive groves about twenty minutes from Bríndisi last year [2007] – paying just €95,000 for it. They’ve put in a pool, and offer holiday rentals.
“We’d always liked Italy and Italian food,” David explains. “We’d seen the northern half of the country, but never been to the south. Then we saw a Grand Designs programme about a couple restoring a property in Puglia, and we thought ‘ooh, that looks interesting!’ We eventually met up with the very couple, but that’s another story… We started looking at properties on the internet, and came up with a plan for semi-retirement. We’re very seasonal here in John O’Groats, and the idea is to spend more of the winter out there in Puglia, and come back here for our tourist season.
“We bought our little villa through Buyahouse-italy.com. It’s just outside San Vito dei Normanni. It’s a very sensible house, in a sort of cul de sac with about five or six other villas – two or three with permanent residents and the rest summer houses like ours. It was in good condition when we bought it, just full of rubbish and furniture. It has three bedrooms, a good kitchen, a garage, and about 2,000 square metres of land. There are four really big, hundred-year-old olive trees in the garden. The rest are almond trees, fig trees, orange and lemon bushes. And there are three rows of edible grape vines as well. Lots of Puglian properties come with thousands of square metres of olive trees, and it’s just too much to take on that kind of management from a distance. I don’t think people realize.
“We both come from Middlesex originally, and we moved up here to John O’Groats in 1975. The strangest thing about Puglia is that it’s very similar to what this part of Scotland was like when we moved here three decades ago. Rural and traditional. Family members all living locally, not scattered all over the country like people tend to end up now. Lots of small, family-run shops. Puglia is definitely charming, and we like the people a lot.
“Our buying experience really was quite trouble-free. I thought buying in Italy would be more bureaucratic than in the UK, but actually the whole process was quicker and easier. Our agents were very helpful; they took us along and set up our utility accounts and did all the translation, for example. Everything went smoothly and according to plan.”
For more on David and Sally’s villa, visit: www.villa-olivia.co.uk
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