The ways of the angel, solitary itineraries

The mountain of Apulia by definition, Gargano has since the remotest times had a sacred element to it, because of its woods of holm-oaks, and oaks (seat of the oracles of Jove); because of the lords of the shadows, closed in their dark caverns (places sacred to the soothsayer Calcante and the God Mithras); the caverns oozing icy water with therapeutic qualities, dedicated to the Homeric doctor Podaleirus (rites of incubatio or hallucinogenics) and finally, in the Christian Middle Ages, because of the exauguration and the banishment of the ancient demons by the sword of Michael; because of the icons of the black Madonnas, the Byzantine saints, monks and hermits wandering from cave to cave, from hill top to hill top until Gargano became a sort of “Monte Sacro”-sacred mountain (from the abbey of the same name at Mattinata), similar to Aghios Oros (sacred mount) “par excellence”, Mount Athos in Greece, the holy republic of the orthodox monks.

The land of Puglia

A strip of land stretching out into the Mediterranean, an imaginary and practical springboard to the East and its lands, since ancient times Puglia has had a rare natural propensity to act as a bridge between East and West, Europe and Asia, the peoples of the continent and those on the sea.

First inhabited in Neolithic times when the native tribes saw its numerous ravines – natural in a karst terrain such as that of Puglia – as welcome places of refuge, numerous different peoples have lived on this land, each one brought by new cultures and civilisations: from the early contacts with the oldest populations of the Aegean, Cretans and Mycenaeans, to increasingly frequent and sometimes belligerent relationships with the Greek peoples, who established one of their most prosperous and important colonies, Taranto, on this soil.

There has always been an alternation of peoples from east and west: the Greeks were succeeded by the Romans, the Romans by the Byzantines and these by the Lombards, each dominating and being dominated. When the Byzantines’ and the Lombards’ time had come the Normans and Saracens took their turns; the former, fascinated by a sun denied to them, were fervent builders of fortifications and castles for defence and pleasure, the latter were equally fervent attackers of the former, and not for reasons of defence. After the Normans came the Swabians, the Angevines, the Aragonese, the Spanish again and so on until the region was politically united with the rest of Italy.
Despite this alternation of peoples the region has not lost its distinctive conformation which emerges original and unchanged over the centuries and that gives it a regional character, a harsh but hospitable decidedly southern land, - a strong sun in a bright sky, sun-drenched, parched landscapes – where man closed in his age-old reserve cohabits with a tradition of exchange and encounter, hospitality and warmth.

The scenery of Puglia offers such variety that its lands should be referred to in the plural (recalling the ancient partition of the region into Daunia, Peucezia and Messapia): from the enchanting scenery of the Gargano promontory – the scholastic “heel” of Italy where the lush green Mediterranean maquis and forest stand out against white rocks shaped by water and wind and golden beaches contrast with a deep blue sea and sky – to the low-lying cost of the Salentine peninsula where the rock, a natural and unequalled defence against not always welcome foreigners arriving from the sea, alternates with sandy shores, now popular and highly frequentable destinations for holiday-makers and bathers; from Le Murge – where the undulating relief that rises in tiers from the coastal ledge suddenly falls into deep swallow-holes (here called “puli”) or in long clefts with vertical walls (called “gravine”) – to the intensely cultivated Tavoliere plain – an eloquent image of an active and well-organised human presence – and then to the trulli and farms inland, bearing witness to a widespread and dense occupation, a difficult relationship with an obstinate land, of lives spent silent, far from the noisy bustle of the ports, from the deafening uproar of battle, from the quietly-spoken but insistent rumours of court. Just as history and nature have repeatedly stamped permanent and multicoloured signs of their passage, so too has man, with works artistic and other, perhaps aesthetically more modest but no less important, and diversified in time and space, offering the interested visitor an unequalled alternation of artistic and anthropical sights, the fruit of complex combinations, mixtures and superimpositions that produce original languages. While the numerous natural caves that perforate the land of this region produce the signs – in varying conditions of conservation – of something more than scattered or isolated settlements, such to suggest talk of a cave civilisation true and proper – where the dwellings, in scattered groups but more often in clusters, are flanked by places of worship, favoured by hermits or cenobites, stores and necropolises – further evidence of far more refined civilisations, imported but well assimilated, comes from the excavations that have uncovered the layouts of acropolises, temples, residential areas and palaces.

And as the slowly spreading new Christian religion resulted in a burst of religious architecture which – although based on distant aulic models, persistently echoed in plan and decoration – used the local substratum to elaborate highly respectable original stylistic elements, the frequent incursions led to arming of the territory with walls around the towns and mighty castles on the coasts. This type is at its heights of universally recognised splendour in the magnificent Castel del Monte, erected by Frederick II (the function of which is not clear until now), its contained and regular structure dominating the landscape and, ideally much more. In the 18th century an opulent aesthetic taste, abounding in decoration and detail, of fanciful spatial arrangement, indeed an audacious search for new and almost inconceivable structural solutions, led to a flourishing artistic current of great merit, the Leccese Baroque, which managed from the town of origin to fuel fertile veins of artistic production all over the region.

In recent times Puglia is rediscovering the natural qualities of its territory, safeguarding them wherever their values imposes this (in 1991 the Gargano promontory became a national park) and upgrading them where a more dense human presence makes this necessary.

Castellana Caves

Leave the coast and travel inland taking the s.s. 377; 15 km of rather narrow roadway surrounded by scenery typical of Le Murge and you will come to Castellana Grotte (289 m, 18726 inhab.), famous for its speleological complex, certainly the most spectacular and finest in Italy. The caves, created by the course of an ancient underground river, were first entered towards the end of the 18th century, by a group of local youths. In 1938 professor Franco Anelli lowered himself through a open chasm (La Grave) approximately 60 m deep, making way for subsequent explorations and promoting its immediate opening to the public. The complex consists in five caves (grotta Nera, salone delle Statue, sala della Civetta, sala dell’Altare, grotta Bianca) with few ramifications but considerable vertical development (in excess of 30 m) connected by natural and artificial tunnels and corridors. A mid large cavities and corridors the cave extend for kilometres on different levels.

Castellana’s underground water network has not yet been fully investigated: at present an overall length of more than 2 km has been explored.

Terra d’Otranto

In ancient times Terra d’Otranto was the name given to the entire Salentine peninsula, from the Brindisi area to Santa Maria di Leuca. Today, this name is used only for the narrow strip of coast belonging to the eastern Salentine that overlooks the Canale d’Otranto – the sheet of water between Italy and the Albanian coast – from Punta della Contessa, south of Brindisi, to Capo d’Otranto.

This is a long, partly hilly, partly flat area, divided between the provinces of Brindisi and Lecce; the masseria is a common sight here although this type of country house is most common on the Bari coast between Barletta and Monopoli and the Le Murge inland area. A large farmhouse , typical expression of a peasant culture, in Terra d’Otranto the masseria is often fortified, being constructed on land that used to be plagued by pirates.
The coast is rocky and jagged close to Otranto, with many caves and caverns once round Capo d’Otranto and the Porto Badisco gulf, whereas it slopes gradually as you return towards Brindisi.

Terra d’Otranto can still be considered a Greek “island”: those visiting it and the environs will note the characteristic Hellenic spirit in the monuments and popular traditions. The “Greekness”of Otranto is also present in the language: in some villages, the Salentine people still speak Greek.

The capital of Lecce remains the base for the itinerary through the eastern Salentine; head northwards along the fast s.s. 613 road towards Brindisi. Stop at Surbo (40 m, 12729 inhab.), one of the villages scattered in a half-moon around the main city. This is in the unusual situation of an enclave on the municipal territory of Lecce and has now been “captured” by the city with the creation of an industrial estate centred around the railway and dual carriageway. The village has a compound structure with an irregular nucleus, flanked by two new geometrical districts. Founded in the 10th or 11th century, it used to be part of the county of Lecce. Of note is the parish church of Santa Maria del Popolo (1590), with remains of the previous 15th century construction. The d’Aurio church in the masseria of the same name, is 12th century but has been somewhat spoilt.

Once past Surbo, follow the dual carriageway to Torchiarolo and San Pietro in Vernotico. Torchiarolo (28 m, 5127 inhab.) was founded by the inhabitants of the nearby Valesio (Messapian centre, later Roman, and known as Valentium or Balesium), destroyed by the Normans in 1157.

The ancient origin of the town is shown by a cabinet found in 1926, perhaps part of the treasure of a sanctuary and containing coins of numerous mints of Magna Graecia, coined from the second half of the 6th century BC on. A feud of the county of Lecce, it was subjected to bloody incursions by the Turks until the 18th century. The parish church is of the 18th century. Three kilometres north of the village are the remains of the megalithic walls and the necropolis of Valesio.

At San Pietro Vernotico (36 m, 15004 inhab.) there is a 14th century quadrangular tower but the castle, constructed by the Normans in the 11th century, has regrettably been lost. The village inhabitants are famous for having participated in two uprisings against the Bourbons in 1821 and 1848. The mother church is of the 18th century.
After leaving the dual carriageway, you come to the coast at Torre San Gennaro, a fishing village which is fast becoming a seaside resort.

Heading south, without encountering a port for thirty kilometres or so, you will arrive at San Cataldo, a beach popular with the inhabitants of Lecce; it has fine sand and a pleasant pine wood. Near the small headland that ends the village is a stretch of water prohibited to boats for the presence of a military firing range.

Also in the area are the ruins of Porto Adriano founded by the Roman emperor on the Canale d’Otranto.

You now enter the woods, then come again to the coast, gradually becoming rockier; an excursion can be made inland to admire Acaja,  a model village-fortress constructed in 1535 by the military architect Gian Giacomo dell’Acaja and now in a pitiful state of abandon.

San Foca, Roca Vecchia and Torre dell’Orso are the principal resorts encountered along the coast before you reach Otranto. All are preparing themselves for tourism. The area is of considerable archaeological importance. Constructions between San Foca and Roca Vecchia have been identified as the remains of a coastal installation of imperial times, closely linked to the exploitation of marine resources: fishing, conservation of the catch and oyster farming. By no means isolated, the installation was organically linked to one of the rural villas inland, pivots of the farming activities of ager lupiense. Roca Vecchia was presumably the maritime port of Rudiae, the important native site that until the 4th century BC was the main centre in the region and which continued to rival Lecce (Lupiae) for the supremacy of the Salentine until the first century AD. The village of Roca Vecchia was at the time protected by a circle of dry walls built between the 4th and 3rd  centuries BC using large blocks and a ditch; there were two gates one to the south-west, one to the north. Of the same period is also the necropolis, consisting in rectangular graves dug into the rock.

Before reaching Otranto, situated at the centre of a extensive pine woods, is Lake Alimini. This is divided into two small basins – Alimini Grande (connected to the sea) and Alimini Piccolo, the latter also known as Fontanelle, a reference to the springs which supply it.

Of these two small lakes only the latter provides water that can be used for irrigation. The area was recently reclaimed and given modern amenities.

Otranto (15 m, 5282 inhab.) takes its name from the river Idro, now disappeared, at the mouth of which the town was founded, in a bay on the Adriatic coast.

The area occupied today is but a part of what was the ancient Hydruntum. The historical centre, surrounded by walls, stands on the south shore of the port, while the new town has expanded inland.

A Greek and then a Roman town, in the Middle Ages it was one of the most important towns of Byzantine domain in Italy, thanks to the position of its port, a point of embarkation for the Orient. In the 9th century, before the Byzantines occupied Bari, it was their capital, later becoming the chief town and military centre of Terra d’Otranto. With Bari and Taranto it was the centre of Greek resistance to the Normans; it capitulated in 1068. True to the Swabians until 1250, it then sided with the Church. Assailed by the fleet of Mohammed II, the town fell on 12th August 1480 after a fifteen-day siege: the defenders were massacred and eight hundred citizens beheaded. Freed a year later by Alfonso of Aragon it was then occupied by the Venetians and attacked again by the Turks: this marked the start of its decline.

Its economy is based on tourism, one of its principal sources of income. The port activities are centred around fishing and maritime links with Greece.

Despite the destruction worked over the centuries, the town conserves numerous ancient buildings of interest. Of the Byzantine era is the highly interesting church of San Pietro, built around the year One Thousand; the interior is rich in frescoes of various periods, regrettably much altered; the best conserved of these portray the Lavanda dei piedi and the Ultima cena and are accompanied by inscriptions in Greek, thus dating them between the 11th century and the following ones. The church must then have been the cathedral of the town, autocephalous metropolitan seat of Greek rite until the Norman invasion. It is a classical inscribed Greek cross-shaped building, with a small cupola at the intersection of the arms supported on cylindrical pillars with spherical pendentive connections, three apses with barrel vaults on the arms and corner chambers, decorated as mentioned with frescoes. Almost of the same period (erected in 1080-1088 at the wish of the first Latin metropolitan, Guglielmo) is the grand cathedral, the numerous “two-zone” capitals with eagles at the four corners, or bell ones with crosses and eagles at the centre of the trapezoid fronts or open-worked like woven wicker baskets declaring their Constantinople origin. Not until around the mid 12th century did the cathedral take on its presence appearance, with the transept being divided into three according to a central-northern model, using transversal arches contrasted by wall divisions and the original pillars being replaced with columns, rising tall and crowned with finely worked Romanesque capitals. Above the Baroque portal there is a lovely rose window in 15th century Gothic-Arab style and the left side is opened by a 16th century portal. The floor of the nave and two aisles inside and of the presbytery is covered with a mosaic which is one of the largest known. The work of the bishop Pantaleone, in the years 1163-1166, it consists in a series of pictures created in a rather rough, simple style, but captivating for the imagination involved and variety of composition. The decoration starts with a large tree in the nave, the branches forming volutes that contain scenes from the Bible, Mediaeval animal figures, zodiac signs and pictures from the stories of king Arthur and his knights. Another two trees branch out symmetrically on the floor of the two aisles. Below the apse is a large crypt with five aisles divided by numerous columns. The castle built at the end of the 15th century by the Aragonese and which reveals signs of the hand of Francesco di Giorgio Martini from Siena has a trapezoid structure, with circular towers on three corners, the fourth corner being occupied by a lance-shaped point.

The Salentine Peninsula

Lecce – Copertino – Nardò – Gallipoli – Ugento – Leuca – Castro Marina – Santa Cesarea Terme – Otranto – San Foca – San Cataldo – Lecce

This itinerary winds across the Salentine peninsula, the extreme south-eastern part of Italy, the so-called “heel of the boot”. It is an easy and smooth trip across a generally flat area,  broken by the odd rocky height which in the southern part takes the name of “Murge Salentine”.

The geological panorama changes: the calcareous stone of nearly all the rest of Puglia is replaced by fine limestone and the famous Lecce stone which, cut and used in various decorations, has produced a characteristic artistic style, decorative Baroque which makes Lecce unique. The jagged coast contains numerous picturesque marine caves.
Leave Lecce and head for Copertino, reached either via Monteroni or San Pietro in Lama. Copertino is known mainly for its castle, one of the best preserved of the Salentine peninsula. After 11 km on a straight road you will reach Nardò. An agricultural and commercial town of Messapian origin, it remained for many centuries under Byzantine rule. From Nardò go to Gallipoli, reached inland by crossing the Galatone or with a interesting variation along the coast, passing through Santa Maria al Bagno, a popular seaside resort.

Gallipoli has an oriental air, all white, resembling the villages of the Cyclades. It extends into the sea on a headland and small island joined by a bridge. It is known for its olive oil and fish and, in recent years, has become an icreasingly established resort.
From Gallipoli follow the Salentine road amid olive groves and vine yards along a uniform road towards Ugento, reached after crossing Taviano (large farming centre) and Racale.

Ugento, known today for the cultivation of tobacco, takes its name from the ancient Ausentum, of prehistoric times, and with a 9 km circle of walls. Repeatedly destroyed and reconstructed (it was also devastated for an obscure vendetta worked by the Queen of Naples Giovanna “la pazza”) it is becoming an established farming centre thanks mainly to the work of the reclamation consortium.

After a stop at Ugento return to the main road which becomes gentler, accompanied by tall pine trees. Pass through Acquarica del Capo, then Presicce, Patù, Castrignano del Capo and lastly to Leuca and Santa Maria di Leuca where Italy ends.

Interesting excursions can be made from Leuca to the nearby prehistoric caves (also reached by boat): the grotta del Diavolo, the grotta del Fiume, the grotta del Presepio, the grotta dei Giganti, the grotta della Stalla and the grotta del Ciolo. Today Leuca is a fair-sized fishing village and a popular seaside resort with good amenities.

The itinerary now climbs the coast and is a succession of bays, caves and splendid natural scenery, uncontaminated by building development.

Cross Marina di Novalgie, Marina Serra, Marina Porto to Castro Marina, a village of almost Mediaeval appearance, in a lovely scenic position, a base for excursions to the two most important grottoes (after those of Castellana, of course) in Puglia: the grotta Romanelli and the grotta Zinzulusa.

From the Castro headland a convenient road climbs slowly to 100 m amid hedges of prickly-pear cactus to Santa Cesarea Terme, at the centre of a district hidden in wild stony ground sheer above the sea. Of ancient origin, inhabited by Cretans, driven away by the Barbarian invasions, this is  famous spa thanks to the sulphureous waters containing sodium chloride and sodium iodide which flow from four springs communicating with the sea.

Leave Santa Cesarea: after a few kilometres the road leaves the sea for Uggiano la Chiesa (recommended excursion to the nearby Scusi dolmen) and from here, descending along an undulating coastal terrace edged with vine-yards and olive groves, comes to Otranto, the other large fortified town of the Salentine peninsula, the region of which was for centuries called Terra d’Otranto. The name derives from the river Idro (water) in Latin Hydruntum , which flows into the port. A well- developed Greek town it took second place in the times of the Romans, who preferred the more convenient port of Brindisi. Today Otranto is famous for its monuments, as a fishing port and as a seaside resort.

Between Punta Scuru and Capo Palascia, four miles south-east of Otranto, are the white cliffs and gulf of Porto Badisco. Here a fantastic underground world awaits, the caves scattered along the coast conserving geological and ethnological finds of extraordinary interest.

Leave Otranto and the road winds between the sea and Alimini lakes (this area has been upgraded by reclamation and the presence of holiday villages), across a viaduct, to pass Torre dell’Orso, busy in summer, then Roca Vecchia to San Foca, a small fishing village. The s.s. 611 at first on the rocky coastline and then amidst woods leads to San Cataldo, the beach of Lecce, known for its lovely shores and equally beautiful pine woods. A fast, straight internal road will take you back to Lecce.

Copertino: the castle, built in 1540 with a sumptuous Renaissance portal. Nardò : cathedral dating from the 12th century; church of San Giuseppe, Baroque. Gallipoli: Hellenistic fountain on the eastern side of the old port; castle extending into the port; the cathedral of Sant’Agata dating from 17th century; church of the Purità, with a sumptuous interior embellished with four large paintings by Liberio Riccio. Ugento: the trapezoid-shaped castle, dating from the 13th century. Leuca: the sanctuary of Santa Maria standing “at the end of the world” (“finimunno” as they say in local dialect). According to popular belief a pilgrimage to Santa Maria di Leuca is essential to gain access to Heaven. Santa Cesarea Terme: two spas, Terme Gatulla and Terme della Sulfurea. The season goes from 15th May to 15th November. Otranto: cathedral of the Annunziata with a grandiose interior and a highly original floor mosaic, a work by the talented priest Pantaleone, telling stories from the Bible, mankind and stories of King Arthur and of Charlemagne. To the right of the presbytery is the chapel of the Martiri, conserving the mortal remains of many of the 800 inhabitants of the town massacred in 1480 by the Turks. Through two stairways in the aisles you descend to the crypt with five aisles and three apses: this is a mass of stone with 68 columns in marble and capitals in the most varied styles.

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