Puglia, Italy

Palazzo Flora

Price per night from$109.67

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR95.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Palazzo Flora Photos

Style

Palazzo piccolo

Setting

Spiaggia-spying Gallipoli

Explore

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Planted right in the middle of Gallipoli’s blooming beautiful old town, Palazzo Flora lies steps from both beach and baroque 17th-century cathedral. But it’s the artfully designed interiors — fabulous frescoes, decorative floor tiles, a riad-style patio — that really earn this 10-room boutique its flowers. Leaf through coffee-table books in the library, photosynthesise by the garden pool and repair to the cute neon-lit bar for liquid refreshment.

Smith Extra

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A traditional Italian aperitivo, served on the rooftop

Facilities

Photos Palazzo Flora facilities

Need to know

Rooms

10 individually designed rooms, including five suites.

Check–Out

11am. Check-in is between 3pm and 10pm. Both are flexible, on request and subject to availability, and you’re welcome to make use of facilities at both Palazzo Flora and Palazzo Presta while you wait for your room.

More details

Breakfast is available at Palazzo Flora’s sister hotel, Palazzo Presta, 50 metres along the street. For €15, you can enjoy a continental buffet and cooked-to-order dishes such as eggs, pancakes and avocado toast.

Also

Unfortunately, Palazzo Flora’s 19th-century interiors make it unsuitable if you have mobility needs.

Please note

Palazzo Flora’s national identification code (CIN) is IT075031B400111145. 

Hotel closed

The hotel opens for the season on 1 April and closes on 15 November.

At the hotel

Library, access to bar and restaurant at Palazzo Presta and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: air-conditioning, smart TV, minibar, coffee machine, free bottled water, beach towels, bathrobes, slippers and custom bath products.

Our favourite rooms

Palazzo Flora’s varied bouquet of boutique rooms means you never quite know what treasures your sleeping quarters might hold. All 10 rooms beguile with patterned tile floors, hand-picked artworks and calming colours. Some have vaulted ceilings with original frescoes by artist Agesilao Flora (after whom the guesthouse is named), others woo with eye-popping statement headboards. Some suites have tiny spiral staircases that lead to mezzanine levels; many Deluxe Rooms and Junior Suites also open onto small balconies.

Poolside

Garnet-striped cushions edge an eye-catching circular plunge pool in the garden, home to towering greenery, cacti and a colonnaded pergola of dreams; it’s open for dips between 8am and 6pm.

Packing tips

Historic palazzi tend to lend themselves well to digital downtime, so cram in as many paperbacks, travel games and packs of cards as your suitcase will tolerate.

Also

Palazzo Flora can arrange for a personal trainer to deliver tailored fitness from yoga classes to workout sessions. If you've set your heart on having a balcony, please add a note when you book and staff will do their best to meet your request.

Pet‐friendly

Pets are not allowed in Palazzo Flora’s refined rooms. See more pet-friendly hotels in Puglia.

Children

Welcome, although better suited to older children. There are no babysitting facilities available, but kids are allowed in the pool under supervision and junior suites can sleep families of up to four on request.

Sustainability efforts

Conservation was the lodestone that powered Palazzo Flora’s painstaking restoration: original flooring and storied stone columns have been repaired lovingly with in-keeping traditional methods and any introduced materials are natural and were sourced locally. Modern energy-efficient systems have been integrated discreetly to boost comfort and reduce consumption, including solar power. Single-use plastics have been largely eliminated here, and ingredients used in sister hotel Palazzo Presta’s restaurant lean heavily on local producers and daily catches from Gallipoli's shores.

Food and Drink

Photos Palazzo Flora food and drink

Top Table

Cocktails are best enjoyed poolsidein Palazzo Flora’s garden courtyard and/or up on the roof over at Presta as the sun goes down.

Dress Code

Keep it casual for poolside cocktails at Palazzo Flora’s bar, but bring your glam A-game for dinner and drinks along the street at Presta.

Hotel restaurant

There’s no restaurant at Palazzo Flora, but you’ll find Lazzaro & Caterina, an atmospheric street-level restaurant serving (primarily) locally caught fish and seafood, at sister hotel Palazzo Presta, just along the lane. Your reward for making the 50-metre pilgrimage: inventive plates such as linguine with purple prawns, friggitelli and Isigny Saint-Mère butter served beneath original 17th-century barrel-vaulted ceilings. Up on Palazzo Presta’s roof, Terrazza Laurus adds tapas, tartare and a long list of cocktails to the repertoire. For breakfast, you’ll also need to head to Palazzo Presta.

Hotel bar

Palazzo Flora’s bar (open between 9am and 6pm) serves snacks and cocktails beneath neon light that bathes the floor’s checkerboard tiling in soft pink hues; you can also order from its menu to your poolside perch.

Last orders

Breakfast is served at Palazzo Presta from 8am–10.30am, and dinner from 7pm–11pm; the bar there is open until midnight. Back at Flora, the bar pours until 6pm.

Room service

Available at Palazzo Flora during normal Palazzo Presta restaurant hours (8am–10.30am and 7pm–11pm).

Location

Photos Palazzo Flora location
Address
Palazzo Flora
Via D'Ospina 19
Gallipoli
73014
Italy

Palazzo Flora is tucked away on a quiet side street of Gallipoli’s old town on Puglia’s west coast, just a couple of minutes’ walk from the beach.

Planes

The nearest airports are Brindisi, one hour from the hotel, and Bari, two-and-a-half hours away. The hotel can organise private transfers on request; prices start from €140 one-way from Brindisi Airport.

Trains

Gallipoli train station is a kilometre-and-a-half from the hotel for rail connections to Lecce, Casarano and beyond.

Automobiles

Palazzo Flora is in a car-free zone of Gallipoli's old town, with golf carts available to ferry passengers (and their luggage) in and out. There's a private carpark 250 metres from the hotel; prices vary by season and you’ll need to reserve your spot in advance.

Worth getting out of bed for

There’s plenty of historic eye candy within easy ambling distance of Palazzo Flora. Try a self-guided mini sightseeing tour of Gallipoli old town’s labyrinthine lanes, packed with dazzling whitewashed buildings and even more dazzling Ionian views. Don’t skip the Basilica of Saint Agatha’s baroque 17th-century splendour, or the fortified Byzantine castle that stands sentinel at the old town’s entrance. Flanked by the old town walls, the aptly named Spiaggia della Purità (Beach of Purity) is a mere stroll away.

Inland, the spoils of age-old vineyards and olive groves await: the hotel can arrange tours of local wineries and you can polish your dinner-party skills at a cookery masterclass with Palazzo Presta’s head chef. Gently paced bike tours are a fine way to get a better footing in Italy’s heel, or you can save your legs on a boating day trip along the Salento coastline, ogling secret coves, endless azure waters and those perfect pink sunsets along the way. 

Local restaurants

This part of Puglia is all about silky olive oils, rustic bread, fine wines and seafood fresh from the Ionian. You’ll find all of the above at beloved Gallipoli stalwarts Santa Monaca and Il Pettolino, accompanied in both cases by terraces that straddle the old city walls and promise ringside seats for sunset. Monaca’s traditional prawn orecchiette and Pettolino’s grilled swordfish steak are tipped. 

Local bars

There’s a smattering of decent bars each side of the old stone bridge that connects Gallipoli old town to the Puglian mainland. Try the self-explanatory Sunset Bar at Il Faro Restaurant down on the seafront, or head into the new town for sophisticated sips at Panacea, just off Corso Roma. 

Reviews

Photos Palazzo Flora reviews

Anonymous review

By Mr & Mrs Smith

Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this boutique guesthouse in Gallipoli’s old town and unpacked their biscotti and velvety Italian olive oils, a full account of their seaside sojourn will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Palazzo Flora in Puglia… 

Palazzo Flora’s internal patio, with its terracotta-red walls, wrought-iron railings, potted plants and intricately carved wooden doors, has something of the traditional Moroccan riad about it. But the higgledy-piggledy charm of this boutique Gallipoli guesthouse is otherwise pure Italian palazzo — here an original checkerboard-tile floor, there a soaring vaulted ceiling complete with flamboyant frescoes by renowned fin-de-siècle Lecce artist Agesilao Flora. 

Tucked away on a quiet side street in the car-free old town, Palazzo Flora is a study in refined tranquillity. The library’s soothing sages and antique oaks absorb coffee-time chatter, and the only sounds likely to break the courtyard garden’s dignified hush are the occasional clink of wine glass meeting tabletop, or the gentle sploosh of a sunseeker plunging into the pool. Combined with the services of nearby sister hotel, Smith-approved Palazzo Presta — including a rooftop bar and polished restaurant — it’s the complete package. 

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Price per night from $103.90

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