Ostuni: The Dazzling White City
Puglia’s White City, a hilltop maze of lime-washed lanes above a sea of olive trees, 8 km from the Adriatic. Beautiful enough to visit for its own sake, and central enough to be the best base in Apulia.
Where is Ostuni?
Inland in the Valle d’Itria, province of Brindisi, about 8 km from the coast. About 35 minutes from Brindisi airport and about an hour from Bari, and an hour by train from Bari, though the station sits 2.5 km below the old town, so plan a taxi or shuttle up. The historic centre is steep, stepped and pedestrian: pack flat shoes, don’t drive into it and hire a car for everything beyond the walls. Population ~31,000.
Best things to do in Ostuni
Ostuni is a cone of whitewashed houses on a hill eight kilometres from the sea, and almost everything worth doing is inside the walls or within sight of them. The old town is a spiral and there is no flat way through it, so wear something you can climb in and plan the day around the heat rather than the map.
1. Start in Piazza della Libertà
The square at the bottom of the old town is where everything begins, and the tall baroque spire in the middle of it is the Guglia di Sant’Oronzo, put up in 1771 by the local sculptor Giuseppe Greco in thanks for the town being spared the plague. Twenty metres, four tiers, the saint blessing the town from the top.
2. Climb into the white town without a map
Above the square the centro storico winds upwards in a single spiral of lanes, arches and staircases, all of it lime-washed. Getting lost is the activity, and you cannot get very lost: every path eventually turns uphill to the cathedral or downhill to the square.
3. Look up at the cathedral rose window
The Concattedrale was begun in 1435 and finished between 1470 and 1495, and its late Gothic facade is unlike anything else in Puglia. The central rose window has twenty-four rays and is described locally as the second largest in Europe. Stand back across the little square to take it in, because the street is too narrow to see it from below.
4. Walk under the Arco Scoppa
The arch beside the cathedral links the bishop’s palace to the seminary across the lane, and it is the most photographed few metres in Ostuni after the belvedere. It takes a minute and it is on the way to everything else.
5. Meet Delia, who is 28,000 years old
This is the thing almost no guide in English puts near the top, and it should be. In the Museo di Civiltà Preclassiche della Murgia Meridionale lies the skeleton of a pregnant woman from the Gravettian, about 28,000 years ago, found in 1991 in the Grotta di Santa Maria d’Agnano just outside town by the archaeologist Donato Coppola. She was around twenty, about 1.70 metres tall, and she was buried with her foetus intact and her right hand resting on her belly. She is one of the oldest mothers ever found anywhere.
6. Take the belvedere over the olive plain
From the northern edge of the old town the land drops away into a plain of olive groves that runs eight kilometres to the Adriatic. Go at the hour before sunset, when the plain goes gold and the white town behind you turns the same colour.
7. Find Porta San Demetrio
One of the two surviving medieval gates, on the lower western side of the walls. It is the quiet way in and out, and the stretch of wall on either side of it gives you the scale of the place better than any viewpoint.
8. Go to the Saturday market
Held outside the walls in the morning, and it is the town doing its own shopping rather than a tourist market. Fruit, vegetables, cheese, household junk, and the local vocabulary at full volume.
9. Eat under the olive trees, not just in town
The plain below Ostuni is one of the great olive landscapes of the Mediterranean, and some of the trees down there are more than a thousand years old. A mill visit with a tasting explains more about Puglia in an hour than any museum, and the good ones are a ten-minute drive from the walls.
10. Stay for the evening
The whitewash takes floodlight better than any other town in the region, and the whole cone glows from the plain. What the evening is actually made of, and where the clubs really are, is in the section on Ostuni after dark further down this page.
11. Drop down to the coast
Ostuni’s own seven or eight kilometres of coastline are a proper part of the town and not an afterthought. Which stretch to pick is the next section.
12. Use it as a base, then leave it
Ostuni sits within an hour of Alberobello, Locorotondo, Polignano, Matera and the Valle d’Itria, which is the strongest argument for sleeping here rather than just visiting. The day trips are set out at the bottom of this page.
Get lost in the old town
One of the largest historic centres in the valley, flower-filled courtyards, tiny bars, staircases that go nowhere. Best at golden hour.
Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta
At the town’s highest point: 15th-century Gothic, rare in Puglia, with a rose window among the largest in Italy.
Arco Scoppa & the viewpoint
An ornate 1700s stone arch linking the Bishop’s Palace and Seminary; round the corner, olive groves roll to the sea. Those silvery trees are part of what makes Puglia Italy’s olive-oil heartland.
Also worth your time: Piazza della Libertà, the lively square where the climb begins, with the Colonna di Sant’Oronzo and the Chiesa di San Francesco; and the Saturday market on Viale Pola for local produce.
Where to stay in Ostuni
Ostuni gives you two very different stays, and which you pick shapes the whole trip. Sleep inside the centro storico and you step into the white lanes each morning, but you’ll park below and climb, and rooms run small. Sleep in a masseria, a restored fortified farmhouse on the plain, and you get the quintessential Puglia stay: olive groves, a pool, long dinners built from the estate’s own produce, but you’ll want a car. For a first trip we lean masseria for most nights, with a night or two in town if you like to walk everywhere. Reckon on roughly €150-250 a night in spring and autumn, climbing steeply in August, when the best masserie book out months ahead.
Compare live prices for hotels and rentals around Ostuni on the map.
Our top 3 picks
Hand-picked for different trips, a classic masseria, an in-town luxury stay, and a value option.
Masseria Il Frantoio
A 16th-century oil-press farmhouse just below town, the classic Ostuni masseria: olive-oil and wine tastings, cooking classes, slow-food dinners from the estate.
La Sommità Relais & Châteaux
The finest stay inside the old town: a serene luxury boutique high in the white lanes, with the Michelin-recognised Cielo restaurant and a citrus courtyard.
Masseria Cervarolo
About 15 minutes out: a traditional stone masseria with some rooms in restored trulli, set around a pool among the olives, strong value for the experience.
Other strong options: Masseria Le Carrube (quiet, lemon gardens, vegetarian restaurant), Ostuni Palace Hotel (elegant, in the old town), Dimora Donna Lucrezia (good value, pool, near the beach), Masseria Salamina (its own castle, near Pezze di Greco).
Our top experiences from Ostuni
From Ostuni the experiences that earn their place are inland ones: a hands-on orecchiette class, an e-bike loop through the olive groves and trulli, a guided food-and-wine walk of the old town, an olive-oil tasting at a working frantoio. Boat trips and sea-kayaking are better booked down on the coast, at Polignano or Monopoli, and we link those on the experiences hub.
Experiences to book around Ostuni
Our in-depth guides, with live prices and free cancellation on GetYourGuide:
See live tours and activities in Ostuni
Live availability and prices via GetYourGuide, updated in real time.
Ostuni wine tasting
Around Ostuni, wine comes with the full masseria experience. The countryside below the White City is dotted with estates and farm wineries where a tasting means the wine plus the olive oil, the food and the setting, usually over a long lunch among the olive groves. It is the most experiential way to taste in Puglia, and it pairs with Ostuni’s strong appeal as a base. If you only have one afternoon, we have written up which wineries are worth the drive.
Tastings here are experiential rather than technical. You visit a masseria or estate, taste the wine and the estate’s olive oil, and very often stay for a long, slow lunch in a beautiful rural setting.
- Duration: a couple of hours for a tasting, a half day with lunch.
- You taste: the estate’s wines and olive oil, with local cheeses, bread and seasonal dishes.
- Where: masserie and farm estates in the countryside below Ostuni.
- Good to know: this is as much a food-and-setting experience as a wine one, so come with an appetite.
Yes, if you want the experience as much as the wine. A masseria tasting near Ostuni gives you the food, the oil, the setting and the slow pace that define Puglia, all in one. With the White City as a base, it makes a lovely, relaxed half day.
Where to eat in Ostuni
Ostuni eats the cucina povera way, pucce stuffed with vegetables, orecchiette, burrata from up the road, grilled meat ordered by weight at the fornello pronto butcher-grills. The one rule: sidestep the set-menu places lining Piazza della Libertà and the top of Via Cattedrale. The tables worth your evening sit a lane back, out at a countryside masseria, or down on the marina for raw fish.
Osteria Ricanatti
Eight tables, elevated takes on Puglian classics. Book ahead.
Cielo, at La Sommità
Fine dining in a citrus courtyard inside the old town. Book ahead.
Borgo Antico Bistrot
Aperitivo with the best view in town, by the Arco Scoppa. No bookings, big summer queues, go early.
Also: Masseria Moroseta (a destination tasting menu in the countryside, book well ahead), Trattoria Fave e Foghje (the local favourite), Drogheria Pugliese (handmade orecchiette), Al Solito Posto (best pizza in town).
Ostuni’s beaches, and which stretch to pick
The town is eight kilometres uphill from its own sea, which surprises people who booked it for a beach holiday. The coast is a genuine asset but it needs a car, and the stretches are very different from each other.
Torre Pozzelle, the rocky one worth the walk
A string of small coves between low rocks, partly free, with none of the concrete that spoils stretches further north. It is the prettiest piece of the Ostuni coast and it has almost no services, so bring water and shade.
Rosa Marina and Villanova, the organised end
Rosa Marina is a private residential estate with beach clubs and calm water; Villanova is a small harbour with a lido and a couple of restaurants. This is where you go if you want a lounger, a shower and lunch without thinking about it.
Costa Merlata, the one in the postcards
A jagged line of inlets that gives the stretch its name, with sand at the bottom of each. It gets very busy in August because the big resorts sit behind it.
Pilone and Lido Morelli, for actual sand
South towards Torre Guaceto the coast finally turns sandy and the dunes start. This is the right end for small children, and it runs into the Torre Guaceto reserve, which is protected, uncrowded and the best swimming on this coast.
The honest version: if the beach is the point of the holiday, sleep on the coast and visit the white town in the evening rather than the other way round. The regional picture is in our guide to the best beaches in Puglia.
When to visit Ostuni
Ostuni is a hill town with no shade in its own streets and a coast eight kilometres below it, which makes the calendar matter more here than in most of Puglia.
May, June and September are the right answer for almost everyone. The sea is warm from June, the whitewash is not yet an oven, and the old town is walkable at two in the afternoon rather than only at seven. Late September in particular gives you a warm sea and half the people.
July and August are hot, bright and crowded, and the town works in two shifts: early morning and after six. It is also when the coast is at its best and when the town puts on its biggest night, the Cavalcata di Sant’Oronzo on 24, 25 and 26 August, with the ride itself on the 26th. If you want that, book months ahead.
Winter is the surprise. Ostuni does not close: it is a working town of about 30,000 people, the restaurants stay open, and the white town under a low sun with nobody in it is arguably the best version of the place. The trade is that the coast is shut and you will want a car. Our regional guide covers the rest of the year in the best time to visit Puglia.
Getting there & around
Fly into Bari (~1h away) or Brindisi (~35 min), then drive: a car is what makes this corner of Puglia work. By train, Ostuni is an hour from Bari, but the station sits 2.5 km below the old town, so plan a taxi or the local shuttle up the hill. Inside the historic centre you’re on foot; masserie, beaches and day trips all assume wheels.
Arriving by air? A fixed-price private airport transfer saves you the drive and the hire-car ZTL worry, and an Italy eSIM gives you maps and data the moment you land.
| From | Distance | By car |
|---|---|---|
| Brindisi airport (BDS) | ~37 km | ~35 min |
| Bari airport (BRI) | ~90 km | ~1 hr 5 |
| Bari | ~85 km | ~1 hr |
| Alberobello | ~40 km | ~45 min |
| Polignano a Mare | ~55 km | ~50 min |
| Lecce | ~90 km | ~1 hr |
Ostuni after dark
Ostuni is the Puglian hill town that reads better at night than by day, because the whitewash takes the floodlight and the whole cone of the old town glows above the plain. The evening is Piazza della Libertà at the bottom and the alleys above it: the square, with the eighteenth-century obelisk of Sant’Oronzo standing in the middle of it, is where you start, and the bars and terraces are in the lanes that spiral up from there.
The evening is a climb, so dress for it
The old town is a spiral on a hill and there is no flat way through it. The good terraces are the ones facing north over the olive plain to the sea, and all of them are up the slope. Wear something you can walk uphill in on polished stone, and expect the last stretch back to the car to be the hardest part of the night.
The one weekend when the town is not itself
The Cavalcata di Sant’Oronzo takes Ostuni over for three days at the end of August, on 24, 25 and 26 August in 2026, with the ride itself on the 26th. Horsemen in red cassocks and plumed hats escort the silver statue of the patron saint through the alleys on caparisoned Murge horses, a tradition running since 1793. It is the best night of the Ostuni year and the worst one to turn up for without a booking.
The honest version: the clubs are not up here. Ostuni’s summer nightlife proper is on its own coast at Villanova, Rosa Marina and Costa Merlata, seven or eight kilometres downhill, and there are no late buses back up. Settle the taxi before the aperitivo, or sleep down there and treat the white town as the daytime. The lidos on that stretch, and which of them are worth the money, are in our guide to the best beach clubs in Puglia.
Day trips from Ostuni
Ostuni’s position is half its appeal: trulli towns, cliff-edge coast, Roman ruins and a safari park all sit within 45 minutes. Push a little further and Martina Franca’s baroque (35 min) and Matera’s sassi (~1h15) make easy half-day-plus runs.
Carovigno & Torre Guaceto
Puglia’s wildest protected beach: dunes and a watchtower · ~15 min · Carovigno guide
Alberobello
Trulli · 45 min
Polignano a Mare
Cliffs · 40 min
Egnazia
Roman ruins · 20 min
Zoosafari Fasano
Family · 20 min
Locorotondo
White village · 30 min · guide
See all day trips
Best time to visit
May, June and September: warm, swimmable, and without the August crush, when prices peak and the patron-saint festival fills the town. Best time to visit Puglia
Keep planning
Practical guides: Getting to Puglia · Rome to Puglia · The coast road to Lecce
Related: Best masserie in Puglia · Where to base yourself in Puglia · Valle d’Itria white villages · Polignano a Mare guide · Fasano & the coast
Ostuni: FAQ
How long do you need in Ostuni: day trip or base?
A half day covers the old town’s main loop, so it works as a day trip from Bari, Brindisi or Lecce. As a base for the coast and Valle d’Itria towns like Cisternino, Locorotondo and Martina Franca, two to three nights is sensible.
Is Ostuni worth visiting?
Yes: the whitewashed historic centre is one of the best-preserved hilltop old towns in Puglia, with a striking Gothic cathedral and views over the olive plain to the sea. Be aware it gets crowded in July and August.
When is the best time to visit Ostuni?
May to June and September to early October give warm weather, open beaches and thinner crowds. July and August are hot and busy, while winter is quiet with many restaurants and beach clubs closed.
Where do you park and how do you get up to the old town?
The hilltop centro storico is a ZTL, so leave the car in the pay-and-display car parks just below it and walk up. From the lower car parks it is a steep five- to ten-minute climb through the streets.
Are there beaches near Ostuni?
The beaches are on the Marina di Ostuni coast, roughly 7 to 15 km below the town, so you need a car or the seasonal bus. Costa Merlata is rocky with coves, while Rosa Marina and Pilone have sand and dunes.
Is there nightlife in Ostuni?
In the old town it is bars, terraces and the alleys around Piazza della Libertà, busy from July to early September and quiet outside it. The clubs are not up here: Ostuni’s summer nightlife is on its own coast at Villanova, Rosa Marina and Costa Merlata, seven or eight kilometres downhill, with no late buses back up. The Cavalcata di Sant’Oronzo, on 24 to 26 August in 2026, is the busiest night of the year.
Does Ostuni have a beach?
Not in the town: Ostuni sits on a hill about eight kilometres from its own coastline, and you need a car or a summer shuttle to reach it. The coast itself is good, from the rocky coves at Torre Pozzelle to the sand at Pilone and the protected water of the Torre Guaceto reserve. If a beach holiday is the point, sleep on the coast and come up to the white town in the evening.
Is Ostuni a good base for Puglia?
One of the best in the north of the region. Alberobello, Locorotondo, Martina Franca, Polignano a Mare and the Valle d’Itria are all within an hour, Matera is about ninety minutes, and the coast is fifteen minutes downhill. The trade-off is the hill itself: the old town is steep and mostly pedestrian, so you will park outside the walls and walk.
I grew up in the province of Brindisi and spent 30 years in Puglia; the Salento coast is home water. Everything above is checked on the ground; when a place slips, it gets updated. More about who is behind this guide