A journey of ancient stone and high places: the buried cities of Campania, a cliff-top ridge walk, then the cave-city of Matera and a medieval riddle in Puglia.
Your driver collects you at Naples airport and drives south to Sorrento, where your hotel looks out over the Bay of Naples and, on a clear evening, Vesuvius beyond. The rest of the day is unstructured — time to find your footing, wander the old centre, and take an early aperitivo above the marina. A gentle first evening before the fuller days to come, with dinner at your own pace by the water.
Overnight · SorrentoWith a private guide, you walk the streets of Pompeii — the forum, the frescoed villas, the plaster casts that make the eruption of 79 AD suddenly, unbearably human. In the afternoon you continue to Naples and its Archaeological Museum, where the finest mosaics and bronzes from the buried cities are kept. Seen together, ruin and museum complete each other: the place, and the treasures lifted from it. You return to Sorrento by evening.
Overnight · SorrentoYou set out in the late afternoon, when the coast road empties and the light turns amber. Positano spills down its cliff; Amalfi glows below its cathedral steps. You climb to Ravello, high above the sea among its famous gardens, for dinner as the last light leaves the water far below. The Amalfitana rewards those who wait for evening — the same road at a wholly quieter hour, your driver handling every hairpin.
Overnight · SorrentoThis morning you walk the Sentiero degli Dei — the Path of the Gods — the high trail that traces the coast between Bomerano and Nocelle, with the whole Amalfitana and the isle of Capri laid out beneath you. Back in Sorrento, the late afternoon turns to the kitchen: a hands-on cooking class where you learn to make gnocchi or a proper ragù, then eat what you've made over a long, convivial dinner.
Overnight · SorrentoAfter four nights on the coast, you transfer to Naples for the new direct train to Bari — the peninsula crossed in a few comfortable hours rather than a long drive. In Bari your driver waits to bring you into the Itria Valley, where dry-stone walls, ancient olives and the conical roofs of the trulli define the land. You arrive at your masseria in time to settle in before a dinner drawn from the estate.
Overnight · Valle d'ItriaToday, into Basilicata and Matera — a city of stone that seems to grow from its ravine. With your guide you descend through the Sassi, the cave-quarters inhabited for millennia, into rock-hewn churches still bearing their frescoes. From the belvedere the canyon opens, austere and timeless. After an unhurried local lunch you return to the softer, greener country of the Itria Valley, the contrast between the two landscapes part of the pleasure.
Overnight · Valle d'ItriaA day at valley pace. You explore the whitewashed hill-towns — Locorotondo, Cisternino, perhaps Martina Franca's baroque streets — before visiting a working dairy. Here a cheesemaker shows you how burrata is made, the warm mozzarella stretched and filled by hand, and you taste it only minutes old with bread and new oil. The afternoon is unhurried: the estate's garden and pool, a glass of local wine, the quiet of the countryside.
Overnight · Valle d'ItriaOn the way to the airport you stop at Castel del Monte, Frederick II's enigmatic octagonal fortress crowning a lonely hill — a UNESCO site whose perfect geometry has puzzled scholars for eight centuries. After time to explore its strange, empty halls, your driver continues to Bari airport for your onward flight. A fittingly mysterious close to a journey that ran from a buried Roman city to a medieval riddle in stone.
Fly home from BariThis is a sample programme — fully private and ready to tailor around your clients' dates, pace and taste. Arrivals into Naples, departures from Bari.
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