Rent a Car in Bari

Bari Vecchia, the old town's tangle of alleys behind the harbour, is best explored on foot — narrow streets and heavy pedestrian flow make a car more of a hindrance than a help there. The real reason to hire a car in Bari is everything Puglia has spread around it: Alberobello and its UNESCO-listed trulli are about 50 minutes south, Polignano a Mare's cliffside old town is barely 35 minutes down the coast, and Ostuni, the whitewashed hill town, sits around an hour southeast.

A car also opens up the rest of the region at a pace public transport can't match. The Itria Valley's masserie and vineyards, the Adriatic beaches around Torre Canne and Savelletri, and Matera's cave city just over the regional border into Basilicata are all realistic day trips. Lecce, the baroque capital of the south, is about ninety minutes away, making a longer Puglia loop easy to plan from a Bari base.