This guide was put together for my best mate Tony — who's worked hard enough to deserve his house on the hill. May he spend many a summer and winter up here: baking himself in the sun, and roasting chestnuts by the fire, as the seasons allow.
You're up at roughly 400 metres, in the cool green pine-and-oak belt above Fasano, where the well-to-do have come to escape the summer heat since the late 1800s. This is the Selva — the forest — and it has its own gentle rhythm: shaded lanes, garden walls, birdsong, and air that's a good few degrees kinder than the plain below.
The spine of it all is Viale Toledo, the long tree-lined avenue that threads through the Selva — the green promenade where, on a summer evening, everyone drifts out for the passeggiata. Villa Nina sits up in the quiet San Donato corner, near the top of the hill, with the little rock-cut church of San Donato and its botanical park almost on the doorstep.
And watching over the whole hillside: the Minareto, a whimsical Moorish tower raised by the painter Damaso Bianchi in the early decades of the 1900s, its little lamp lit at night — locally remembered as a "light of culture" over the Selva. It's the emblem of this place, and it's a three-minute drive from your gate.
Everywhere in the Selva — a flat walk, or a three-minute drive.
Everything here is close. Some of it you'll stroll to for the pleasure of the walk; most of it is a one- to five-minute hop in the car. Either way, you barely leave the hill.
The genuine walk-out-the-gate spot: a tiny rock-cut church and a green botanical garden, right by you. The quiet heart of your corner of the Selva, and the patron the hill celebrates each August.
The nearest plate of food to the villa, and a well-liked one — the pizzeria beside Hotel Miramonti, barely 300 metres down the road. The default for an unfussy supper when you don't feel like going anywhere.
Your nearest excuse for a wander — a modest roadside lookout a few hundred metres along, good for a breath of air and a glance out over the slope. Not a grand belvedere, just a pleasant, close one.
A long-running Selva kitchen doing honest local cooking — the kind of reliable, unpretentious table you end up returning to. A short drive, or a proper 15-minute walk if the evening's fine.
The Selva's special-occasion address, on Viale Toledo — refined Pugliese cooking for when you want to make an evening of it. (They also cater out at the masserie, if a grander do is ever in order.)
On Viale Toledo, a friendly local table with a leaning toward the sea. Order the orecchiette and the grilled sea bass and you won't go wrong.
A bustling, generous spot named for its great oak — pizza and trattoria staples, good for a lively, easygoing meal with a crowd.
The Moorish folly-tower that crowns the Selva — the thing to show every visitor. Wander up, take it in, and understand at a glance why this hill has its own character. Out at Contrada Gordini, a couple of minutes by car.
About fifteen minutes' descent to Fasano and the plain.
Down off the ridge sits Fasano proper — the town for a real dinner, a wander, the markets, and the evening out. The drop takes a quarter of an hour, and the world opens up.
This is where you go for a serious meal. A few to know: Da Silvè for honest cucina povera (Silvestro and his Mamma Maria in the kitchen — ask for a glass of Susumaniello); Pentole e Provette for a tasting-menu evening, and do the wine pairing; and the cheerful trio of Ardecuore (also a wine bar), Osteria Popolare and La Locanda di Martumè for relaxed Pugliese plates. La Destina / Piccola Cucina da Elena rounds it out.
An honest word: Fasano has a real but moderate evening scene — aperitivo, cocktails, a few good pubs — not a clubbing capital. For the big summer nights, the coast is where it's at. But for a proper night out in town, it's all in the walkable pocket around Piazza Mercato Nuovo, the Portici delle Teresiane and Corso Garibaldi.
The one to build a night around — proper cocktails, live music, open till around 1am.
Good craft beer and a proper burger, on into midnight. Easy, unfussy, just right.
Guinness, rock on the speakers, board games, open till 3am — the place the night ends up.
Avvinamente is a wine shop that turns evening wine bar (till 11pm); Pub Minaloca keeps going till 2am if you're not done.
Puglia's big drive-through safari and amusement park, just below the town — a proper day out, and a guaranteed winner if younger visitors ever come to stay.
A ravine full of 13th-century rock-cut churches and faded Byzantine frescoes — quietly extraordinary, and rarely crowded. Around €6 to go in.
The famous Itria Valley towns — none more than about half an hour.
This is the heartland the Selva sits in: white hill-towns, trulli, and food worth driving for. Each one's an easy outing, and each carries its own honest figure below.
A perfect circular town of whitewashed lanes, and the home of crisp Locorotondo white wine. The closest of the famous towns.
The famous hillside of conical trulli roofs. Go early to beat the crowds, and eat at Casa Amatulli.
Famous for fornello pronto — pick your meat at the butcher, they grill it, you eat the bombette right there. Try Zio Pietro, Al Vecchio Fornello or Al Fornello da Pinuccio.
Grand baroque streets and the home of capocollo. In high summer it hosts the Festival della Valle d'Itria (opera under the stars). Eat at La Pasteria or Origini.
The dazzling whitewashed hill-city, spilling down toward the sea — the showpiece of the area. Dine at Osteria del Tempo Perso or Taverna della Gelosia. The longest of the town drives, but still comfortably half an hour.
Here's the lovely surprise: the whole coast is close. The catch is that distance alone won't tell you which beach you want — the nearest water is rock, the best sand is barely a minute or two further, and even the famous cliff coves are under half an hour. So this is ordered by the kind of day you're after, with the drive time as the tiebreak.
The closest water to you: rock platforms and little sandy coves right below the hill. Lido Ottagono is the best all-rounder for a sunbed-and-lunch day; Savelletri free beach for no-cost rock-and-cove swimming; Cala Pescatore, down by Egnazia, for a small sandy bay. Clear, warm water — bring water-shoes for the rocky entries.
When you actually want sand underfoot and shallow water, this is the one — a long, gentle, sandy beach in a little thermal-spa town, and barely two minutes further than the rocky coast. Free patches and friendly lidos both. The everyday choice.
The Puglia of the brochures: fine soft sand, shallow turquoise water, low dunes behind. Lido Morelli is hugely photogenic and very shallow (go early in August — it fills up); Pilone, just along, has soft sand, clear water and free parking by the watchtower. The prettiest sand of the lot, and astonishingly close.
A sweet sandy beach tucked beneath an old abbey, with a proper view to go with the swim. Worth knowing on a scorching day: there's a cool, fresh spot in the water here that the regulars all mention — a little shock of cold in among the warm, and utterly blissful when the afternoon's baking. Pair it with a wander round Monopoli's old town.
The iconic one: a pebble cove wedged between sheer cliffs beneath an old Roman bridge — yes, the Red Bull cliff-diving spot. Dramatic, photogenic, and closer than its reputation suggests. Make a day of it with the cliff-top town above.
The antidote to the lido strip: a WWF- and Slow Food–managed marine reserve of pristine dunes, crystal water and protected olive groves — no development, just coast as it used to be. You park up at the reserve and a little shuttle-train runs you down to the beach. And at the reserve's edge, the splendidly named Portoguaceto "agribeach" — a farm-to-beach club for when you want the wildness and a cold drink. The furthest haul here, but no slower than Ostuni, and the most special of them all.
Puglia takes its pasticceria and gelato seriously. These are down in Fasano, an easy part of any town run.
For cakes and pastry, Bar Pasticceria Velletri and Pasticceria Rossana are the names to know; for gelato, Crema & Cioccolato; and Bar Venus for a classic morning caffè-and-cornetto. Look out for pasticciotto (warm custard-filled shortcrust) and, in season, almond everything.
You're in the middle of serious olive country and good honest wine. Buy it at source — it's cheaper, fresher, and the visit's half the pleasure.
For oil straight from the press, Extravergine Savoia and Frantoio Pagliarulo / Graziano are close at hand. (A charming aside at Savoia: the farm dog is also called Nina — so the villa has a four-legged namesake among the olives.)
Up at Locorotondo, the cooperative and small producers — Cantina Mir / Vineka and Weno among them — pour the crisp local white the town's known for. Combine it with the round-town wander.
Just down on the coast lies one of the great archaeological sites of the south — and you can stand in the middle of three thousand years of it.
A city that lived through it all: a Bronze Age settlement, then a Messapian town behind seven-metre walls, then a Roman municipium astride the Via Traiana (laid in 109 AD). It gave its name to the prized black-glazed Gnathia ware, and Horace passed through in 38 BC and grumbled about it in verse. Listed by UNESCO in 2024. The walls, the road, the mosaics, the sea right there — go.
The Selva is forest to begin with, and the country around it is full of karst valleys, caves and woodland walks.
On the doorstep, the San Donato botanical park by the little church. Below the ridge runs the Canale di Pirro, the long karst valley you look down into from the hill — lovely on a bike or a slow drive. Further out, beyond Martina Franca, the woods of the Bosco delle Pianelle are good for a proper forest walk.
One of Italy's great cave systems — a guided descent through vast underground chambers to the luminous white Grotta Bianca. Cool even at the height of summer, and genuinely jaw-dropping.
How to spend a day here like someone who belongs, rather than someone passing through.
Eat late (9pm is normal). Do the evening passeggiata on Viale Toledo. Buy oil at the frantoio and veg at the Fasano market. Swim at the free rocky coves with water-shoes. Take the whole afternoon off — everything shuts anyway.
Dinner at 7pm to an empty room. Only ever the famous trulli of Alberobello. Bottled supermarket oil. Beach umbrella money where a free cove was 200m away. Trying to "do" five towns in a day.
The whole point of this hill is the slow version. Lean into it.
A few dates worth aiming for, season by season.
You've earned every metre of this view. So don't treat the place like a checklist — treat it like a home. Some of what's in here you'll do in your first week; some you'll still be discovering years from now, which is exactly as it should be.
Bake yourself in the summer sun. Roast your chestnuts by the fire when the cold comes round. Walk the avenue in the evening, eat late, buy the oil at source, swim off the rocks, and let the Minareto's little lamp watch over the lot.
Tutto questo è tuo, ora. Goditelo — season by season.
— with love, from the bottom of the hill.