Where to stay in Puglia: the best towns and hotels

Polignano a Mare is the shot everyone has seen: a cluster of white houses balanced on limestone cliffs, with the pebbly cove of Lama Monachile wedged between them and divers launching themselves off the rocks. The old town is a maze of lanes ending in sudden balconies over the sea, and a statue of Domenico Modugno, who sang 'Volare', stands arms wide on the seafront.

Its most famous address is built into the cliff itself, with a restaurant in a sea cave. Other options include stylish apartments a few steps from the cove and, just out of town, masserie: old fortified farmhouses turned into spa hotels among the olive trees. Bari and its airport are up the coast, and the town is on the railway.

A few kilometres south of Polignano, Monopoli is bigger, busier and less overrun. Its old town wraps around a harbour full of blue fishing boats, guarded by a seafront castle built under Charles V, and the coast either side is a string of small sandy coves.

The countryside around Monopoli has some of Puglia's most famous luxury hotels: a masseria among ancient olive trees about 5 km from town, and a seafront hideaway with a private beach and six pools. In town, elegant apartments in an early 20th-century building look over the castle and the sea, while families do well at a resort set in a pinewood 50 metres from a sandy beach at Capitolo.

Ostuni rises from the plain like a pile of sugar cubes, its whitewashed old town wrapped around a hill topped by a Gothic cathedral. Its alleys and stairways are made for wandering, and from the walls you look across endless olive groves to the Adriatic, a few kilometres away.

Stay inside the old town for romance: a Relais & Châteaux hotel on the street leading to the cathedral, or a newer hotel with vaulted rooms, a rooftop bar and a chef-led restaurant. Or stay below the town in a masseria among centuries-old olive trees. The beaches around Torre Canne are about 18 km away, and Alberobello is about 40 minutes' drive.

Alberobello is the capital of the trulli, the round, whitewashed stone houses with conical grey roofs found only in this corner of Puglia. Its two hillside quarters are packed with hundreds of them, together a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is undeniably touristy by day, magical once the coaches leave.

This is the place to sleep in a trullo for a night or two: one 19th-century palazzo in the centre has a real trullo suite in its garden. Modern spa hotels sit a short walk from the old town, and country hotels lie out in the green, stone-walled Itria Valley, a few kilometres away. Bari is about 50 km north.

Lecce is one of Italy's most beautiful small cities, and almost nobody back home has heard of it. Its old centre is built from a soft local limestone that carvers turned into a riot of Baroque: cherubs, gargoyles and swirling fruit cover the façade of the Basilica di Santa Croce, and the cathedral square glows gold at sunset. There's a Roman amphitheatre half-sunk in the main piazza too.

Stay inside the historic centre in a converted palazzo: one 18th-century noble residence faces Santa Croce directly, another overlooks the cathedral, and there are urban retreats with gardens, pools and spas. Lecce is also the best base for the Salento, with beaches on both coasts within easy reach.

Gallipoli's old town sits on a small island joined to the mainland by a bridge, its walls rising straight from the sea. Inside are churches, fish restaurants and whitewashed lanes; outside, the Ionian turns gold every evening, and the beaches stretching south of town are long, sandy and very lively in summer, when Gallipoli becomes the Salento's nightlife capital.

Hotels include a five-star in two restored 19th-century buildings in the centre, a contemporary spa hotel looking across to the old town, intimate boutique places near the harbour and a masseria among old olive trees just inland.

If your idea of a holiday is wading out into warm, shallow, impossibly clear water, Porto Cesareo is for you. This laid-back fishing town on the Ionian coast is surrounded by sandy beaches, with Torre Lapillo just up the road, and the sea here is protected as a marine reserve.

Hotels are relaxed and family-friendly, many a few steps from the sand: a resort with a private beach and spa, a small four-star steps from the beach near Torre Lapillo, family-friendly B&Bs and a countryside masseria inland with tennis and a pool.

Otranto, on the Adriatic side of the Salento, is Italy's easternmost town, and on a clear day you can make out Albania across the water. Its walled old town and Aragonese castle overlook a sandy harbour beach, and the cathedral floor is covered by a vast medieval mosaic of the Tree of Life.

Stay in the old town in a palazzo hotel tucked behind the cathedral in the pedestrian zone, in a modern spa resort a few steps from the sea, or out in the countryside in a converted 1700s masseria with its own pine forest. North of town, Torre dell'Orso has one of the loveliest beaches on this coast.

Vieste sits on the Gargano peninsula, the spur on Italy's boot, far to the north of the rest of Puglia. Its old town is perched on a white headland, with the huge limestone monolith of Pizzomunno standing on the beach below, and the coast either side is all sandy bays, sea caves and cliffs backed by the forests of the Gargano National Park.

It is a classic Italian family resort, and the hotels show it: big beach hotels with private stretches of sand, pools and tennis courts, some with babysitting and shuttles. It feels a long way from the rest of the region because it is, so treat it as a holiday of its own.

Bari is Puglia's capital and its main airport, and it is far more fun than its port-city reputation suggests. In Bari Vecchia, the old town, women make orecchiette pasta on tables in the street, the Basilica of Saint Nicholas draws pilgrims from across the world, and the seafront promenade is packed with evening strollers.

Stay for a night or two at the start or end of a trip: a grand old hotel faces the entrance to the old town, there are five-stars in the centre, and a villa hotel set in a historic park with a pool is 800 metres from the station.