Luxury bespoke hotel holidays to Leonardo Trulli Resort, Puglia
Facts in brief
Official star rating 4
Location In the Itria Valley countryside, approximately 5 minutes drive from Locorotondo.
Annual opening 4th March to 1st November
Closest airport Bari
Distance from airport 50 minutes by car
Closest railway station Locorotondo
Distance from railway station 10 minutes by car
Hotel facilities and services
Leonardo ArteCibo Restaurant, hotel bar, poolside bar, magnesium salt swimming pool (heated seasonally), Bagno di Natura spa with hammam, jacuzzi, sauna, and steam room, padel court, organic vegetable gardens, cooking classes with Chef Francesco Cataldi, wine tours to local wineries, pottery classes, bicycle rental and guided tours, library, free parking, laundry service, airport shuttle available.
Complimentary
Wi-Fi
Land sports
Padel, cycling, and hiking.
Out and about nearby
Just 5 minutes drive away, Locorotondo stands as one of Italy's most beautiful villages, a whitewashed hilltop town with a distinctive circular historic centre, traditional cummerse gabled-roof houses, and the Church of St. George the Martyr, at the heart of a DOC wine region celebrated for its crisp white wines. The elegant Baroque architecture of Martina Franca lies 13 minutes away, featuring the Palazzo Ducale, the Church of San Nicola, and lively piazzas that host the renowned Festival della Valle d'Itria opera festival each summer. Cisternino, 15 minutes from the resort, offers a charming whitewashed old town famous for its unique bracerie — barbecuing butchers who grill bombette (cheese-filled pork rolls) to order. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Alberobello sits 19 minutes away, home to approximately 1,400 trulli houses concentrated in the Rione Monti and Aia Piccola districts, including the two-storey Trullo Sovrano museum and the trulli-shaped Church of San Antonio. Further afield, the dramatic clifftop town of Polignano a Mare presents stunning views of the Adriatic and the picturesque Lama Monachile beach cove, whilst Grottaglie, Puglia's ceramics capital, invites visitors to explore family-run pottery workshops housed within ancient tufa caves, and the ornate Baroque splendour of Lecce — the "Florence of the South" — can be reached in just over an hour.
Sports nearby
Horse riding, yoga, boat tours, and walking tours.
E did a great job - responsive and professional.Mr J, May 2025
From about
Holiday Code EXH49759
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury bespoke hotel holidays to Leonardo Trulli Resort, Puglia
Founded by Leonardo Cardone, who returned to Puglia after serving as a wartime nurse and planted olive trees, vines, and citrus fruit to create his own village, the Leonardo Trulli Resort preserves an agricultural heritage that continues to flourish under the stewardship of Rosalba Cardone, Leonardo's relative who inherited the estate. The property's 14 rooms and suites are distributed between authentic 18th century trulli with their distinctive conical roofs — meticulously restored to reveal the original raw stone — the Art Nouveau-style masseria built specifically for Leonardo, complete with ornate coffer vaulted ceilings known as "carriage sky" vaults, decorative stuccoes, and traditional terrazzo floors, and the simple stone-built Casa Rosalba country house dating from 1800. Each trullo opens onto a private garden and evokes a unique sense of place. Throughout the resort, rooms showcase the region's artisan craftsmanship through local ceramics from Grottaglie and hand-crafted, hand-embroidered linens from Salento. The Leonardo ArteCibo Restaurant celebrates traditional Apulian, Mediterranean, and Southern-Italian cuisine, with Chef Francesco Cataldi preparing dishes using organic produce harvested daily from the estate's own gardens; dining takes place in the atmospheric setting accessed via a characteristic stone archway with time-worn steps, or around the pool at sunset. Breakfast is served as a generous daily buffet either in the restored wine cellar or beneath a gazebo surrounded by greenery, featuring organic produce, homemade pies, biscuits, yoghurt, jams, fresh cheeses, and DOP meats. The magnesium salt swimming pool, heated during April, May, and October, provides a tranquil spot for relaxation, complemented by the Bagno di Natura spa — a "Nature Bathing" sanctuary set within a private garden, offering hammam, jacuzzi, sauna, massage, and steam room treatments that draw on the surrounding landscape's restorative qualities.
Room descriptions
Leonardo Trulli Resort has 14 rooms, each with Wi-Fi, air conditioning, underfloor heating, satellite flat-screen TV, coffee machine, hairdryer, bathrobes, slippers, complimentary bathroom products, safe, private terrace or garden, and Salento percale cotton and linen.
E did a great job - responsive and professional.Mr J, May 2025
From about
Holiday Code EXH49759
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury bespoke hotel holidays to Leonardo Trulli Resort, Puglia
The journey and how you get there
For a holiday to Leonardo Trulli Resort, you can fly to Bari and collect a hire car. It is possible to visit as part of a self-drive touring holiday of Italy. Alternatively, we can arrange for transfers from the airport to the hotel. A car is essential for exploring the beautiful Itria Valley and the characterful towns and attractions around the resort.
Additional information
Children: Leonardo Trulli Resort welcomes families, with accommodations suitable for children, including Casa Rosalba, Villa Leonardo, and various suite options. Family extras are available on request, including cots, highchairs, baby baths, bed guards, night lights, children's cutlery, changing mats, sterilised bottles, and baby monitors.
E did a great job - responsive and professional.Mr J, May 2025
From about
Holiday Code EXH49759
The prices displayed here are a guide only. Each holiday price will be tailor-made at the time of booking to reflect all actual costs including up-to-date special offers.
Call us on 01392 441245
Luxury bespoke hotel holidays to Leonardo Trulli Resort, Puglia
About Puglia
An Expressions tailor-made holiday to Puglia is an opportunity to explore a gentle land of immense character with a wealth of architectural sights and glorious scenery, both on the coast and in the interior. One of the most startling impressions of Puglia must be the contrasting colours of azure and white, enhanced by the green of olives and vines. Typical sights in Puglia are the trulli, the low lying white-washed houses with beehive-like conical grey roofs, flat fields of grain, olives and vines and here and there perfect examples of mediaeval castles or splendid Byzantine-influenced Norman churches and cathedrals. Red chillies can be seen drying from the wrought-iron balconies of white-washed houses in the villages, whilst broom and mint grow wild in the fields. The coastline of Puglia is noted for its long sandy beaches and the beauty of the hilly Gargano peninsula with bays sheltering beneath dramatic cliffs - a stunning location for your holiday. Our hotels in Puglia tend to be a mixture of 'masserie' - fortified farmhouses that have been converted and extended to be luxury hotels a short distance from the beach, historic hotels in the Baroque city of Lecce and some beachside hotels.
Highlights of Puglia
Explore the Gargano peninsula with its dramatic coastline of coves and cliffs, beaches and forested interior. Take a boat trip to the Tremiti islands off the coast of the Gargano. The Salentine peninsula should be discovered for its vineyards and olive groves, megalithic remains and grottoes including the Grotte di Castellanata.
Cultural highlights of Puglia
The cultural highlights of Puglia are to be found in the quality of the Norman religious and secular architecture and the Baroque of Lecce in particular. Highlights include Lecce's church of Santa Croce begun in 1549 by Gabriele Riccardi and with a magnificent 17th Century facade, the loggia of the 15th Century Palazzo Vescovile, the Duomo rebuilt by Giuseppe Zimbalo (lo Zingarello) and the church of Santi Nicola e Cataldo (the most important Romanesque church in the Salentine). Bari possesses the Basilica di San Nicola, one of Puglia`s first great Norman churches. The 15th Century frescoes in the church of Santa Caterina d`Alessandria in Galatina are of particular merit. In Bitanto`s Romanesque cathedral is an Ambo by Maestro Nicola dating from 1229 with a bas-relief showing Frederick II and his family.
Festivals in Puglia
Martina Franca holds the Festivale della Valle d`Itria in late July/ early August. Bari holds a historical parade of St Nicholas on 7-10 May and a procession on the sea. Galatina has a curious tradition coinciding with the Feasts of Saints Peter and Paul on 28-29 June as tarantism has survived here. Lecce has a feast for the patron saints of the city on 24 to 26 August.
Gastronomy in Puglia
Olive oil is produced in enormous quantities and this together with local fruit, wine and seafood feature in the regional gastronomy of Puglia. Specialities include Focaccia bread flavoured with olives, fennel and chicory, Panzerotti (pasta with anchovies, capers and strong ricotta cheese), Tiella di Cozze (rice, potatoes and mussels), Melanzane alla campagnola (aubergines roasted and soaked in oil, garlic and basil). Dried pasta of all shapes and sizes is also a regional speciality. Puglia also is a great wine producer. A light red is produced at Cerignola and a robust red at Bari. Red Primitivo del Salento or di Manduria are well known.
