Italy, But Slower: A Toddler’s Tour of Puglia

I used to travel to see it all. I’d land in Italy and immediately set out with a vague itinerary (though my husband would call it an army drill) and a complete confidence in my ability to figure things out on foot. I didn’t care how many buses it took or whether the train schedule was written by someone on a typewriter in Rome. I’d always squeeze in one more nook, one more cranny, one more hilltop, one more regrettable spritz, and I’d always imagined my first trip to Italy’s boot-heel to be just that.

Then we had a baby. 

Now, my trips are choreographed around our little ticking time bomb on legs, who thinks every fountain is a bath and every staircase is an assault course. You’ll find me checking in a suitcase that doubles as a mobile pantry-slash-toy-cupboard, and by day one, I will have studied the afternoon shade patterns obsessively in an attempt to avoid the creeping dread of skipped naps. Having Ezra, a whole 21 months of pure delight (but saying the word ‘no’ far too many times in a day), forced me to do something unthinkable on my travels.

I slowed down.

There’s a version of me that would have zig-zagged across all of Puglia by train just to eat the best dish in each town. But on this trip, Ezra taught me to find joy in him rewatching a pigeon crossing a piazza six times, and to sit still while he inhales a square of focaccia in record time. Here’s how Puglia with a toddler really went down.

ostuni

We began in Ostuni, the White City, for a friend’s wedding. Accommodation on even ground was sorted, thank God, because pushing a buggy through that town is like doing squats in a sauna. The town coils upward in pale, circular confusion, a structure that forces you to surrender to its terrain. And that was lesson one: slow travel isn't always a choice. Sometimes it's the result of topography.

The first stop on the Puglia itinerary saw us lunching at Taverna della Gelosia, tucked beneath a leafy canopy, at a table set with hand-painted plates and breeze-tousled napkins. Ezra was soon elbow-deep in focaccia, which became a sort of edible security blanket for the rest of the trip when he was fussy with food. He’d have sold us all for a warm square of it, and honestly, so would I. 

We swept past Bar Perso, where people sit on the steps, sipping spritzes and pretending to read something literary. We looked at it longingly. In another life, we’d be there, holding hands and balancing our glasses as we looked out over the panorama. But in this life, we had a toddler trying to eat the corner of his board book as we carried that buggy up and down a thousand steps in midday heat. Still, we were here, together, and in the moments that we weren’t sweating buckets while carting prince Ezra around in his wheeled throne, it was wonderful.

MONOPOLI

After the wedding, we left the fairytale hilltops for the coast. We took the train (did I mention that neither of us drive? Yes, that’s been fun) to Monopoli, with no plans, just a relaxed ambition to not do much. In a satisfyingly unbothered Italian manner, we scoped out our apartment and arrived before booking it. Wedding guests raised brows at our laissez-faire approach. We raised our glasses and prayed that the apartment we’d scouted wouldn’t have death stairs or glass coffee tables. It didn’t. It was perfect. Modern, with a balcony overlooking Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, and best of all, a kitchen that folded away into a cupboard like origami. The ultimate in toddler-proof design, Ezra could throw his toys with wild abandon and not knock anything over.

That first evening, we accidentally fell straight into a festival of ukeleles (a real thing) and of saints, which wasn’t on our list of things to do in Monopoli. The whole town was outside, dressed in their best, eating and laughing, food in one hand, rosary beads in the other. We joined in like locals with Ezra perched on his dad’s shoulders watching the religious procession. At sunset, after feasting on zucchini flower pinsotti, we headed to the harbour where the stonewashed buildings turned a hue of burnt honey in the fading light.

The next morning, I did what any mother travelling in Italy with a toddler dreams of and snuck out while the boys slept. I fetched a box of pastries and picked up lemons the size of Ezra’s head, purely for decoration of course. We ate on the tiny balcony that overlooked the empty Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II as the sun got warmer. Excited by the cars passing below and the morning birds eager to share our breakfast, Ezra was on a holiday of his own.

We walked to Spiaggia di Cala Porto Rosso about twenty minutes away, which felt like a pilgrimage with a toddler in the heat. We realised too late that we had no parasol — we had taken this whole go-with-the-flow approach a bit too literally. Thankfully, a more well-prepared dad lent us his spare. We left Ezra snoozing under the shade and swam for twenty uninterrupted minutes, just us. When he woke, he saw the sea properly, flailing around like a dolphin impersonator. That evening, after a quick refresh in the apartment, we dined at Pugliami, where dinner did arrive eventually (worth the wait), and the waiters happily co-parented Ezra while we tried to eat. And yes, Ezra ordered orecchiette. Again.

POLIGNANO A MARE 

We took the train five minutes north to Polignano a Mare and stood on the Ponte Borbonico di Lama Monachile, the 19th‑century bridge that spans Polignano’s dramatic gorge. The view from there was otherworldly, with sheer limestone cliffs plunging into a narrow cove, the Adriatic shimmering in a deep turquoise beneath us, swimmers scattered like glossy marbles in a bowl of sea. We paused at Il Super Mago del Gelo Mario Campanella, legendary for inventing the caffè speciale, a sweet-honeyed concoction of coffee, lemon zest, cream, and amaretto served in a glass, paired with grainy, nut-flecked croissants. We sat and ate, with no agenda, just in-the-moment joy.

At Olio su Pane, I had my first octopus panino of the trip and considered asking for a second before I’d finished. Lunch stretched on, as lunch with toddlers so often does, with one of us eating with one hand and the other reaching into my Mary Poppins baby bag and pulling out all the distractions. And of course, the naps in the buggy are always shorter on holiday. When he eventually fell asleep, we wandered slowly through the old town, hunting for shade like lizards. Back in Monopoli, we joined some friends for dinner and revelled in the shared relief of having someone else entertain Ezra for a whole five minutes.

LOCOROTONDO & ALBEROBELLO

My need to ‘see more’ got the better of me the next day. We took a long-winded route to Locorotondo, which, despite it’s circular beauty, felt like a secret from tourists. We met a 70-year-old couple who had cycled there from Munich (not a typo), and we swapped anecdotes about travel and toddlers above the vista, whilst running back and forth from the ledge in Villa Comunale that Ezra was trying to launch himself from.

After, we wandered into the old town and sat to eat the simplest ham and cheese toastie in southern Europe. Here I faced the truth, that I can’t scope out the best meal every time, and that actually, many of the locals opt for a toastie, as we all do. While he napped, we ordered Hugo spritzes and then hopped to Alberobello on an unnecessarily shouty train that woke him up. The traditional trulli houses here really do look like a child dreamed them up. 

Lecce

We trained it to Lecce on the penultimate morning, making a sprint for lunch at La Cucina di Mamma Elvira before they closed. Ezra napped as we sipped on a surprisingly delicious regional orange wine and loaded up in cod and aubergine rolls and lots of red ragout. We pocketed more orecchiette for his awakening, because obviously. Lecce is criminally underrated. There’s baroque and there’s deeply Puglian baroque. We passed an open-air gallery of olive wood carvings and spent time in the Giardini Giuseppe Garibaldi, where Ezra chased pigeons with terrifying speed, and we watched an American couple squabble until a stranger handed them their missing phone and saved their marriage. 

macramè Beach club

We spent our last day at Macramè Beach Club. Sitting still isn’t my thing, I’d usually be hopping from one Italian island to another, but having a solid base with a baby? Glorious. We stocked up on everything from Numeri Primi — litre-sized spritzes, fat slices of watermelon, molten lasagne — and sprawled on our loungers, taking it in turns to chaperone Ezra down the boardwalk. He fell asleep in the sea, warm in my arms, eyes fluttered shut against my chest. I put him down on the lounger in just his vest and nappy, covered in sand and towel fluff, curls sticky with saltwater. I watched his chest move up and down with his soft breaths and thought; this is why we slowed down.

For parents or prospective parents reading this, slow doesn’t mean less. Ironically, with no plans, no schedules, and no cars, we still made it to five different towns. Would I have done more, pre-baby? Definitely. I came to Puglia wanting to dash from trullo to trattoria, from cliff to castle. Instead, I found joy in looping a piazza six times, in how much my son loves lasagne, in freshly made focaccia cradled in his teeny toddler fingers. I came back replenished by the small infinities of ordinary magic. We may not have crossed off every hilltop, but it was on this slow trip that my son developed a love for the sea, and I found joy in the reckoning of my past habits, when I was trying to doing it all.