22 ITALIA! November 2016Italy’s high heel is a special place with a distinctive look and feel. The coastline is endless, the
landscapes arresting, and the culture warm and orderly. Puglia has been a big hit with foreign
buyers for over a decade, yet property remains very affordable, says Fleur Kinson...Puglia
P
uglia is a place that stands out – on the map,
in the imagination and in facts and figures.
Put simply, this is a unique little bit of Italy.
Puglia forms the high heel of the Italian
boot, a shape and position which affords it
the longest coastline of any Italian region. Lapped by
the sea on both sides, with dazzling Mediterranean light
bouncing off its many whitewashed buildings, Puglia
often has the feel of a Greek island. Indeed the area was
settled by Greeks in ancient times, and there are still
Greek words in the local dialects.
Puglia is full of distinctive building
styles, which add to the region’s unique
look and feel. Trulli are circular-walled,
cone-roofed dwellings that crop up only
in Puglia, and their boldly geometric
theme sits well alongside the sugarcube
shapes of Puglia’s lamie cottages and
elegantly massy masserie farmhouses.
Colours seem somehow bolder and
brighter in Puglia, too. The seawater
is a luminous turquoise, the richly
fertile soil almost burgundy in hue.
Meanwhile, Puglian olive trees are some
of the biggest and strangest you’ll ever
see – spiralling up from the earth like
bizarre wooden tornadoes.
Puglia is also a bit special in socio-
economic terms, having the lowest rates
of unemployment – and, reportedly,
of corruption – of all the southern
Italian regions. It’s a safe, orderly and
prosperous place, with a good all-roundinfrastructure. Thinly populated, and with no big cities,
Puglia enjoys a very strong sense of community and a low
crime-rate. Even the ground underfoot behaves itself. The
southernmost two-thirds of Puglia has less seismic activity- i.e., fewer earthquakes – than anywhere else on the whole
Italian peninsula. Long, hot summers and a very low annual
rainfall only add to the appeal of the place.
MARKET & PRICES
Sun-drenched and low-priced, Puglia has long been
loved by second-home-buyers from northern Italy. Its
foreign-buyer market, however,
is only a dozen years old. Low-
cost airlines began flying direct to
Puglia from Britain in 2004, and
(as is often the case) Brits were
among the first to spread news of
the glorious, affordable dolce vita to
be enjoyed down here – especially
by buying a home of one’s own.
Other nationalities followed, and
Puglia’s prices rose a little, but they
never became over-inflated. The
international financial woes of 2008
onward had a knock-on effect of
slightly lowering prices in Puglia as
elsewhere for a few years, but most
prices are not expected to go much
lower now. Today, Puglia continues
to offer excellent value for money –
with property prices still far lower
than those of central or northern
Italy, for example.Homes in
LIVING ITALIA!
Photography © iStock unless otherwise statedOlives are still very important
to the region’s economyIT144.HomesInPuglia.sg4.indd 22 29/09/2016 09:33am