la mappa del Salento

  

Otranto

S. Cesarea Terme

Castro

Leuca

Torre dell'orso

Ugento

Gallipoli

Porto Cesareo

Il Salento

Lying between the Adriatic and Ionian seas, the Salento region, a regularly contoured peninsula, is the southernmost stretch of land of the Puglie. Lecce, its capital, is distinguished from the rest of the Puglie and from Salento itself by its intellectual detachment and aristocratic gentility. The main center of the Puglia Baroque, Lecce is often called the "Baroque Florence". This period, which saw churches and palaces adorned with capricious and ornate decoration, lasted from the end of the 16th to the beginning of the 18th centuries. The Renaissance and even Romanesque structures that underwent these transformations, remained, however, basically unaltered at the architectonic level. Example can be found in the Basilica of Santa Croce, in the contiguous Palazzo del Governo (the ex-convent of the Celestino order) and in the church of Sts. Nicola and Cataldo. The city also preserves other vestiges of a more ancient heritage: an underground Messapian catacomb dating from the third century B.C., underneath the garden of the Palmieri palace; a Roman amphitheatre in the square of St. Oronzo; the remains of Hadrian's port on the beach of St. Cataldo. To get to know the Salento district it is necessary to take two different itineraries, both departing from Lecce: the first along the a "Blue Riviera" of the Salentine towards Otranto, continuing after the Cape -- where the Adriatic meets the Ionian, on to Leuca; the second along the "Nirentine Riviera" on the Ionian Coast towards Nardò and Gallipoli Otranto is the city of the eight-hundred martyrs, slaughtered by the Turks under Mohammed II in 1480 during the famous sack of this city. It had been living "peacefully forgotten" (as is written on the epigraph on Minerva's Hill) when the Ottoman host descended upon it. The city resisted to the last, but after seventeen days of siege, when the walls had been breached and the lives of twelve thousand of its defenders had been lost, the remaining 800 survivors were horribly massacred. In the ancient Norman Cathedral their bones are religiously preserved. The ancient mosaic by the priest Pantaleone, depicting the tree of eternal and earthly life with Biblical scenes and images of strange and fantastic animals is still intact on the floor of the church. On the Adriatic coast appear, glistening like silver, the mirrorlike Alimini lakes, the terrain around them dotted with peach orchards.

The marinas of San Cataldo, San Foca, Otranto, Porto Badisco, Torre dell'Orso, Castro, Santa Cesarea, appear as indentations cut in the rocky coastline that continues right on up to the cape of Leuca where the two seas meet. Green patches of pine, rocky cliffs and grottoes and sparkling sandy beaches alternate to form the beautiful panorama of this area. At Porto Badisco the Virgilian epic is evoked as the cries of Achates and Aeneas'; other men can almost beheard as they shout Italiam! Italiam! upon seeing the Italian coast for the first time. The natural hot springs at Santa Cesarea are well known for their therapeutic qualities. Here a modern and hospitable complex of hotels and tourist facilities can be found in picturesque and pleasant surroundings. Castro is one of the most evocative places in the Salentine region and posesses a beautiful marina and a splendid panorama.

The two nearby grottoes, Romanelli, and "Zinzulusa" are important to paleontologists as well as to tourists. Of equal importance and a must to see are the "Abysso" profound and mysterious, near Part Badisco and the "Grotto of the Devil" near Leuca. At the southernmost point of the heel of "Booted Italy" is the Cape of Santa Maria with the Sanctuary of the Madonna " Finibus Terrae"("at the ends of the earth") the goal of a never-ending stream of pilgrimages. The itinerary from Leuca, Gallipoli offers the tourist a variety of wonders to behold. The Ionian coast of the Salentine region is crowned with an adornment of seaside resorts and beautiful beaches on a lapislazuli colored sea, limpid and serene. After Nardò, the ancient Niretum of Messapian origin which subsequently became a Roman municipality and later a Byzantine fortress, the home of an imposing Romanesque Cathedral, the Nirentian Riviera, dotted with marinas, beaches and pine forests extends on to Santa Caterina of Nardi, and Santa Maria al Bagno home of the "four pillars": Torre Suda, Torre Vado Porto Cesareo and Gallipoli. The gleaming white city of Gallipoli, completely surrounded by the sea, fully deserves its name, "beautiful city" ancient Greek, both for its enchanting location and for its unique monuments (The Castello Angioino which serves as a sentinel towards the sea, the Cathedral of St. Agatha and the Hellenic Fountain), for its beautiful panorama and splendid Lido.

The Salentine countryside abounds in numerous vestiges of prehistoric peoples: "Dolmens" (great blocks of stone) and "Menhirs" (inscribed burial columns) , that rise out of this "land of Otranto" between Giusianello and Minervino di Lecce, Muro Leccese and Melendugno. The Salentine region is easy to get to: by train, both rapid and express, from Turin, Milan, Venice, Trieste, Rome and Napoli to Lecce then by the Ferrovia del Sud Est (South-east railway); by car taking the Autostrada del Sole, running from Milan through Bologna and Canosa to Bari, from there taking the highway to Lecce; by air, from Milan or Rome to the airport at Brindisi (40 km. from Lecce).