Just after I decided to move to Italy from Sydney Australia, I started taking Italian lessons. Our teacher was from Puglia. I remember most of us in the class looked rather puzzled when she told us where she was from, as none of us had even heard of Puglia. That was back in 2014 and Puglia was still rather unheard of amongst foreigners. Today, it's a totally different story.

I remember my very first visit to Puglia was in April 2017. I had been living in Bolzano, which is the far northeastern side of Italy, bordering on Austria. Bolzano is a beautiful town but it did not feel like “la vera Italia” (real Italy) to me due to the Austrian style of architecture and the fact that most people spoke German. Being from Australia, I missed the beach and so I decided to make my way down to Puglia and discover what it was like to live in the south of Italy.