HIT REFRESH WITH ITS LIMEWASHED VILLAGES, PEACEFUL COUNTRYSIDE, AND LUXURIOUS, SERENE ACCOMMODATION, PUGLIA IS THE PERFECT PLACE TO REBOOT, SAYS MIA AIMARO OGDEN There must be something wrong with this satnav. We’re bumping, at nightfall, down a single-track road bounded by dry-stone walls, olive trees looming suddenly out of the mist in front us. Every few metres, a new pothole threatens to swallow us whole. This just can’t be the way to one of Puglia’s dreamiest, creamiest resorts. Up ahead, an elderly Fiat veers into the ditch to let us pass. I wind down the window. “Borgo Egnazia?” I ask. The driver nods his head to the left. “Eccolo.” There it is. He taps his nose and grins. “We like to keep it quiet.” On arrival, the grand, vaulted entrance is ablaze with hundreds of candles. Staff come hurrying out to soothe our nerves and usher us inside. So far, so impressive. We’re in one of the pin-drop-quiet bedrooms in La Corte, a pale fortress of local stone and plush finishes: the linens, pillows, furnishings, and artwork are all of the highest quality. After the harsh realities of the road, there’s something of the dream to all of this – and that’s the thing: Borgo Egnazia was built from scratch by Aldo Melpignano over six long years, in the style of a traditional Pugliese village, a borgo. It’s a facsimile, albeit a deeply luxurious one, that allows frayed visitors to chill by one of the landscaped pools, dine in one of the five ‘village’ restaurants, book a treatment at the Vair Spa, or whoop it up at a festa in the square. It all feels a very long way from that rutted route – but we’re back on it next morning on the way to Matera: not strictly in Puglia (it’s just over the border in Basilicata), but with its deeply evocative history, as well as its role as a European Capital of Culture with a packed diary of art, music, theatre, and food happenings, it merits a detour. In the 1990s, UNESCO declared the Sassi area of the city a World Heritage Site – the same Sassi, or caves, that, in 1950, then prime minister Alcide De Gasperi described as the “shame of Italy”. Fifteen thousand residents were living in rock homes, many dating back to the Neolithic period, with no light, ventilation, running water, or electricity. The community was rehoused on the plateau above, and the caves boarded up – until, in the 1990s, a new wave of inhabitants moved in, 20 | AUTUMN/WINTER <strong>2019</strong>
PUGLIA clockwise from left: The historic town of Matera; Ostuni's white walls; sunset in Matera; Borgo Egnazia; poolside at Borgo Egnazia abercrombiekent.co.uk | 21