In addition to the tour in the old town of Lecce, in her article “South to the Salento,” Patience Gray encourages the visitor to explore some of the villages and small towns inland, using two seaside towns as points of departure: Otranto, on the Adriatic, and Gallipoli, on the Ionian coast, overlooking the Gulf of Taranto.
About one hundred villages are scattered in the Salentine peninsula, some of them very small, others about the size of a small town, but all of them have ancient origins, having been built around an older core, the “centro storico” (the old town). Saracens, Lombards, Normans, Angevins, Aragonese, Turks, Anatolian Greeks, and Bourbons all left their mark in this part of Italy.
Otranto is the perfect base for a tour of “Griko,” the villages where a dialect deriving from an archaic form of Greek is still spoken. The villages of Martano, Corigliano d’Otranto, Calimera, Melendugno, Castrignano dei Greci, Sternatia, Martignano, and Zollino are remnants of a vast area of Greek influence and culture, where liturgically the Byzantine rite was favored and the people were Orthodox rather than Catholic. The area is also referred to as Grecìa Salentina. Carpignano Salentino, Cutrofiano, and Sogliano Cavour are also included under the same denomination, though now they are not “Hellenophone” (Griko is no longer spoken there). A visit to Soleto, one of Gray’s favorite villages, is worthwhile. The village boasts the tiny chapel of Santo Stefano, with its Byzantine and Renaissance frescoes, the Church of Maria Santissima Assunta, with the adjacent 14th century bell tower, the so called “Guglia di Raimondello del Balzo” (according to the legend, it was erected in one night by demons and griffons). Near la Guglia, you can admire fine seventeenth century buildings, but the homonymous tavern suggested by Patience Gray, “where travelers can examine and select traditional dishes and sample local wines” has vanished. However, there’s no scarcity of restaurants and “trattorie” in the vicinity.
Otranto is the perfect base for a tour of “Griko,” the villages where a dialect deriving from an archaic form of Greek is still spoken.
For those traveling from Lecce to Otranto, I would reiterate Gray’s advice about stopping at Roca Vecchia, on the Adriatic coast, where besides archaeological remains of prehistoric eras, already discovered when Gray wrote her piece, the relics of a village of Messapian huts (bronze age) have been unearthed by the archaeologists of the University of Salento.
Otranto lies just fifteen miles south. The town, besieged and conquered by the Turks in 1480 and rebuilt under Charles V in the sixteenth century, faces Albania, whose snowy mountains materialize in the distance when the north wind blows away the clouds and the mist. The Turks spared from destruction the eleventh century Romanic cathedral dedicated to Santa Maria Annunziata (the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary), preferring to use it as a stable, so we can still admire the magnificent mosaic floor, created by the monk Pantaleone between 1163 and 1166. The mosaic represents the tree of life, with scenes that are a sort of encyclopedia of ancient knowledge and culture in “a synthesis of pagan, Hebrew and Christian images as imagined by a medieval monk.” In the 1980s, the whole mosaic was lifted for a long and careful restoration and it is now back in its proper place. Worrying about the safety of this invaluable work of art, Gray writes, “in 1986, painful to relate, archeologists took up this masterpiece in order to restore it.” The fragments of another, and more ancient, mosaic (dating back to the fourth century A.D.), discovered underneath Pantaleone’s mosaic, are now displayed, together with other finds, at the nearby Museo Diocesano.
In 1991, there were not many hotels in Otranto and B&Bs were still a rarity. Patience Gray was fond of Hotel Valle dell’Idro, a family business run by Signora Franca, who ruled over the kitchen, and her charming daughters who would “point the way to hidden coves or drive you to them in a Renault bus.” Today, Valle dell’Idro is a four star hotel (Relais Valle dell’Idro) and the management has changed. The place has been amply refurbished, but the atmosphere is still friendly and the view has not changed.
Places where you can quench your thirst and placate the pangs of hunger abound in Otranto, but a pizza at “La Bella Idrusa”, on the Lungomare degli Eroi, just under the rampart and overlooking the vast square and the sea, is something I would not miss.
Before departing from Otranto, maybe, you will have time for a snapshot at the small red lake, just outside the town. It is an old bauxite pit, now in disuse, that naturally turned into a delicious red pond, the color due to the bauxite production waste. You will find it near the Masseria Monaci, along the Strada Provinciale 87.
When you leave Otranto, bound for the southernmost tip of Apulia, Santa Maria di Leuca, along the Adriatic panoramic road, be sure not to miss Castro, high on a rock, built on the remains of the old Roman outpost Castrum Minervae. Gray cites a street in the old town, Vico della Minerva (Minerva’s alley), suggesting that there, a long time ago, there may have stood a temple to the Roman goddess of the arts, weaving and spinning. Archaeologists had been in quest for the temple, or its remains, for ages, having in mind Virgil’s account of Aeneas landfall in southern Apulia in the Aeneid, book III. A small cove near Castro, Porto Badisco, is thought to be Aeneas first landing on Italian soil, since Virgil’s description of the place seems to picture it in detail. Approaching the coast, the temple was certainly visible.
Gray cites a street in the old town, Vico della Minerva (Minerva’s alley), suggesting that there, a long time ago, there may have stood a temple to the Roman goddess of the arts, weaving and spinning.
The wind we longed-for rises, now as we near, a harbour opens,
and a temple is visible on Minerva’s Height.
(Aeneid, Book III, 530-531. Transl. by A.S. Kline)
In 2007, archeological digs confirmed the existence of a temple precisely at the end of Vico della Minerva. In 2015, a large headless statue of a goddess, identified as Minerva, was unearthed and is now visible at the local museum. More fragments of the statue were excavated in later years.
Proceeding on a southbound course, you will soon have gone around the cape of Santa Maria di Leuca. However, before that, you might follow Gray’s hint and pause “near some ruined watchtower to bend down and pluck mountain thyme, marjoram, wild arugula.” Perhaps you will feel, too, as the writer did, “a sudden euphoria borne on an easterly breeze from the mountains of northern Greece.”
After Santa Maria di Leuca, the road turns north and leads you to Gallipoli, the “beautiful city,” according to its ancient Greek name, Kalè Polis. The old nucleus of the town is on an island connected to the mainland by a seventeenth century bridge. From the mainland end of the bridge, the new quarters, built after the beginning of the twentieth century, stretch inland and along the coast. Of course, it is the old town that draws you. Nowadays, it is no longer densely populated as it was three decades ago. Most of its inhabitants moved to the villas and the blocks of flats of the new town. Still, you will share Gray’s feeling that a visit to the old town, on the one square mile island, “approached over a long bridge, is a festivity, partly because its inhabitants, idle or busy, are so friendly, partly because of the astonishing beauty of the structures lining its winding lanes.”
The chapels that over the centuries the craft fraternities built on the southwestern side of the island, facing the sea, have been restored and in summer are often open to the public. If you secure the service of a good guide you will learn what no tourist travel book could ever tell you about the chapels and the town. Guided or not, you should not miss the Chiesa della Purità, built by the dockworkers fraternity around the middle of the seventeenth century. The interior is an art gallery in itself. When Gray visited it, she noticed that “the members of this fraternity and their offspring are using the church with its painted choir stalls for evening rest and diversion, perhaps as a club – they are lounging, talking, the children darting about.” Not much has changed; especially in summer people still enjoy the cool of the interior.
The Angevin Castle.
The Angevin castle, that had been closed to the public for decades, has also been partly restored and can now be visited.
Thirty-three years ago, Gray would have directed you to the Trattoria del Pescatore, “in a hidden winding lane behind the post office”. In the meantime, the post office has moved to new town. As for the nice trattoria, it was also moved to new premises, but is still in the old town, on the Riviera Nazario Sauro, but instead of a trattoria, it is now a four-star hotel. Gray would have recommended, among other things, “Spaghetti alle Vongole,” and red mullets or sea bass “roasted over wood olive.” As for the wine, the Locorotondo of years ago seem no longer available, but a Leone de Castris rosé will do.
Four miles east of Gallipoli is Alezio, a village whose history dates back to the fourth century B.C. and probably beyond. It was one of the most important Messapian cities. A necropolis was excavated several years ago and can be visited. The finds are displayed at the local museum. Renting a house in Alezio for your holidays could be an option, since the place, being on a hillock, is cooler and certainly quieter that Gallipoli. I take the liberty to suggest dinner at the restaurant Le Macare, run by a family of chefs. They have excellent local and international cuisine.
– This is the second in a two part series about Salento,
Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are from Patience Gray’s “South to the Salento.” Gray’s article was republished, with the same title, a few years ago by the Leccese publisher Kurumuni (2020), edited by Nicolas Gray (the writer’s son) and his wife Maggie Armstrong. The tiny booklet includes both the original English text and the Italian translation. It is available in the bookshops in town or from the publisher.
