Portoselvaggio, Marina Nardò (source: Visual Puglia )
The paleolithic site Baia di Uluzzo can be reached by following a series of footpaths that cross the wood. Flanked by cliffs overlooking the crystal clear sea, it contains stone artifacts and the fascinating remains of large mammals (rhinoceros, deer, bovidae, equinae) of great scientific relevance and from an especially important archaic period known to scholars as “Uluzzian”. Close by, the Capelvenere grotta, or cave, named after a type of fern, is the first of many caves along this stretch of coast. The findings from this cave date back to the first Messapian, Roman and Medieval settlements. One of the most powerful Aragonese fortifications, “Torre dell’Alto”, built to defend the Salentine coast and today home of the marine biology museum, can be reached by following a stepped path. The precipice known as the Dannata (the Damned), a rock that hangs over a 50-metre vertical drop to the sea is the place where, in the 18th century, a girl jumped to her death while attempting to escape the ‘jus primae noctis’ (the ‘right of the first night’ for the Lord of an estate take a maiden’s virginity) imposed by Gian Gerolamo Acquaviva, Count of Conversano and Duke of Nardò, the notorious 'Guercio di Puglia' (Cross-eyes of Puglia). From the tower leads a path facing the tiny beach of Portoselvaggio, with brilliant turquoise water and fed by outlets from underground streams (characteristic of the karstic territory along this stretch of coast in Puglia) bringing bright fresh spring water that rises to the sea’s surface.
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Sun, sea, wind. Nature strikes in the first place, when one gets to this land stretch in balance between two seas. Salento has its core in the province of Lecce, - a Baroque Florence in Southern Italy – and reaches the provinces of Brindisi over the Adriatic Sea, and Taranto on the Ionian Sea side. The cities and inland towns expressions of the unique Lecce Baroque with Messapi and Salento Grecìa can still be seen. Its language, songs and feasts still show the culture of Graecia Magna. Surf, kite-surf and windsurf lovers never miss the beaches facing the Alimini lakes, while scuba diving fans just have to choose among the several equipped centers and charming sea beds of the Ionian coast as well as of the area between Otranto and Santa Maria di Leuca.
Church and hermitage of Santa Maria of the Angels - Scorrano
Lighthouse and aqueduct - Santa Maria di Leuca
Salento coast is characterized by a high variety in landscapes: the clear, fine sand beaches of Santa Cesarea seafront; famous caves such as Castro cave with its Grotta Romanelli, one of the most important Italian prehistoric settlements, and Grotta Zinzulusa, 'the pearl of caves', owing its name to the dialect word 'zinzuli', ('rags'), used by fishermen to indicate its beautiful stalactites and stalagmites
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Baroque style affirmed in Apulia during Counter-Reformation upon the will of Roman Church. A way of exalting Catholic symbols, Lecce and Nardò Baroque has its own characteristics that make it different from the same artistic style in other regions. Its peculiarities derive from the use of amber-colored Lecce stone as well as decorations used to mask the structures on which they are mounted
In Southern Apulia, at the heart of Salento, nine municipalities united to save what is still left of the ancient Grika culture. In this area of Salento there can still be found traces of Graecia Magna Grika language spoken in the Basilian convents dismantled after the council of Trent
Project created in collaboration with InnovaPuglia.
Regione Puglia
Regione Puglia