This spring Puglia was awash in wildflowers. We were lucky enough to spend four nights at Masseria Li Mennuli, where we sampled the delights of Italy's southern coast.

Francesco was a great host, and his Passito, a sweet dessert wine produced on the estate and made from Gewürztraminer and dried Muscat grapes, was superb. Francesco also bottles a fine Primitivo, the wine of the area around Manduria, and it was top notch as well. We learned a lot about Puglia from Francesco and his close neighbor also named Francesco.

Below is a short Video compiled from our Puglia stay.

To stay in this area of Puglia, see the following links:
Masseria Li Mennuli
Masseria Li Reni

Ok, I have to admit, Gallipoli is my favorite town in Puglia--so far. The picture tells the story. Pick a warm, sunny day. You'll be seeing blue.

Yes, I know that Lecce is the "Baroque jewel" in Puglia's crown. Lecce is wonderful.

Gallipoli, though, is a seaside village that isn't entirely devoted to tourism, but rather to the enjoyment of folks who head down for some rest and relaxation. Plus, people still make a living fishing in Gallipoli. You can walk the little streets of the historic center and discover little places like Corte Gallo, a virtual outdoor ethnographic museum with all manner of cultural items you'd expect to find in the houses of a small fishing village maybe 40 or 50 years ago. People have just assembled these things and stuck them artistically to the walls spanning two courtyards. Fabulous!

If you have an apartment, you can go down to the fish market and talk to the friendly folks there, who will sell you impeccably fresh fish (mussels, 2€ a kilo!) or will have fun guessing where you're from.

If you don't like the look of fish fresh from the sea, you can choose to have your them served to you right on the shores of Gallipoli's jutting peninsula with the little houses as a pastel background to it all.

I found Gallipoli friendly, inexpensive, and full of life and vitality. Try it. You'll like it--even when you're blue.

Where I come from, wine is a specialty drink. Bottles of it cost $7 and up. You can get cheaper, but you get what you pay for.

Not in Italy. Sure, there are fine wines costing an arm and a leg. But there is also vino sfuso. The biggest vino sfuso operation I've seen is the one at the Museum of Wine in Manduria, home to Primitivo di Manduria.

You not only get a glimpse of wine production in the good, old days, but you can also taste some fine bottled wines.

Or you can step up to the pumps, declare your favorite wine, and a very nice woman will stick a nozzle in your bottle and off you go with 5 liters of your choice.

So, you want to save money on your Itlalian vacation? Just rent a vacation home in the heart of Pulia and get your wine where it can cost less than a Euro/liter.

We all crave those non-touristy places, don't we? Usually the problem is that those places are untouristed for a reason. There are no tourist facilities, no one to explain everything to you.

I've just been on a whirlwind trip around Puglia. We went to a lot of tourist places in Trulli country. Yes, Alberobello was fine, Locorotondo gleamed white in the sun, the trulli poked their heads into the sky proudly...

But you know which place I liked best? Manduria.

Ever been to Manduria, a town of some 30,000 people in Puglia? You might have gone through it without noticing much, but Manduria is loaded with things to see in a day or two.

Let's see, there's the wine museum. You see, Manduria is the center of Primitivo di Manduria wine production and the museum not only shows off the old tools and methods that folks in these scenic parts used to make their wine, but it offers tasting of some top quality primitivos, and even has a sort of wine station where you can fill your bottle for a Euro or two a liter from pumps that look just like gasoline pumps but are much cleaner.

Then there's the archaeological museum. It's not enormous, but its devoted exclusively to the local culture. Manduria is a center for ancient Messapian settlement. Ring the bell at the museum and you can see the artifacts manufactured many thousand years ago by the local Messapians, like the vase in the picture.

We happened upon a photography session at the museum featuring uncleaned artifacts from a recently excavated tomb. I asked if we cold film them. The answer was "yes". You won't get that kind of answer from big city museums, where paranoid researchers guard against public viewing of artifacts until after publication, which sometimes never comes.

Pliny the Elder mentions a spring in Manduria (he called it Mandonion) which never changed its level, no matter how much water was drawn or added. You can see it today, or tomorrow for that matter--and with the same entrance ticket you can also see the Messapian walls that surround Manduria, an important stronghold of the Messapii against powerful Tarentum (nearby Taranto).

There are also some wonderful places to eat in and around Manduria. And don't get me started on the wine shop or the friendly pourer at the enotecca.

How did I find out all these things? I stayed at a masseria, a large family farm (some were fortified against the frequent pirate attacks from the coast). Each day I gleaned information from the owners on where to go and what to see.

The cool thing is that you can too. Check out these masserie. You won't regret not staying in a hotel. And believe me, the rural life is a heck of a lot cheaper than the city life.

We're staying in Masseria Li Mennuli for a few days and wow, do I like Puglia all over again.

Yes, we've had some spring rain. We've also had some spectacular light and clouds, including a big ol' rainbow today.

Some Primitivo vineyards are under water, and folks are worried. We're just south of Manduria, where the famous Primitivo di Manduria comes from.

We've learned a lot. Like "Primitivo" doesn't have anything to do with primitive. It's an early ripening grape, so the word relates to "primo", or the first to harvest.

As far as restaurants go, we've not had a bad meal here. The seafood is top notch, and the traditional dishes, like fave and ciccoria and wonderful.

And the festival season has started already. The picture above is from the local St. Baggio festival.

Next week is a big week. Tomorrow, the 25th of April, is Liberation Day in Italy. Our local market town, Sarzana has already had its solemn celebration, a small gathering with lots of big speaches.

After a stop in Panzano for a book signing, we'll be off for Puglia.

I love Pulia. I did a 7 week archaeological survey there. I'll never forget the olive groves. In summer, each tree was treated with great care, the ground below swept of living things, each tree sitting in the center of a raked sand zen garden.

The constant and droning song of the cicadas reminded us that it was summer.

Then there was the wine. Primitivo, a relative of Zinfandel, was a favorite. The owners of many restaurants served carafes of it at a ridiculously low price for something so incredibly flavorful. It was like the spirit of the land itself.

As we walked along the land making up the heel of Italy's boot, we were amazed at the cultural artifacts that had surfaced. You'll find evidence of Greek settlement, Roman coins, clay pipes and other treasures underfoot. It was hard to make sense of though--after wondering why artifacts appeared in profusion on one side of a stone wall while nothing at all showed up on the other, we started to pay attention to modern culture--and found it was common practice to sell soil so that olive trees could be grown just about anywhere you could get a truck to. That meant you'd find Roman coins in beach sand on a hill 30 km from the nearest beach. Hmmm.

So the trip should be very interesting. We'll be staying at the Masseria Li Mennuli. We'll have a great time making videos and pictures; letting you know what to expect from a villa rental--and how much more rewarding it is compared to staying in a hotel. Join us for the trip.

For real time updates, you can follow us on Twitter. I'm @wanderingitaly.

I've spent the week thinking of those out of the way places I love in Italy. Take for example Tuscany's Maremma. It's probably the least known area of Tuscany. Last year we spent part of it on the wild coast of Monte Argentario, at the spectacularly isolated La Trappola. The area is full of the things you come to Italy for. There are spectacular hill towns like Pitigliano, great wine and a very tasty cuisine. Summer festivals are culture rich--or sometimes just rich. The Bugatti International Meeting is being held on the last weekend of May this year in Massa Maritimma in the Maremma.

I also think of Puglia, always on the list to take from Tuscany the prize of "best place to visit in Italy." I did a long archaeological survey there, and found the culture fascinating. Yet Puglia is just too far down the boot for most people who have short vacations. It's a shame.

Then there's Lazio. You land in Rome, see the Forum, Pantheon, and the Colosseum, then you take off for Florence or Venice. Well, what about the Etruscan tombs at Tarquinia? What about the spectacular summer food and wine in the Castelli Romani, just south of Rome? What about the porchetta for crying out loud? And there's Ostia Antica, a real port city, where you can see the well-preserved ruins of ancient apartments and small take-away food stands instead of one rich person's villa after another, like you do at the famous resort towns of Pompeii or Herculaneum.

This year we'll explore some of these out of the way places, which are best explored from a rental villa, where you'll have quiet nights. You'll need them with all the excitement of seeing places your friends didn't have a clue about.