Land of Light, Land of History: various for resources
and peculiar characteristics, and endowed with a natural
identity and a common substratum linking up the coast
and the hinterland ones, the people living on the gentle
hills and those living in the towns, sweetly spread on
the plain of Brindisi.
Fasano
"A diversified land, where
light acts as a protagonist and as an amalgam. It illuminates
the precious facades of churches and old palaces with ochreous
flashes, plays among the "trulli" stones and the little
dry-walls, steals into the white lanes of the historical centers,
suddenly sups through the olive-groves, excites the blue
reflection of the sea, giving everything a particular brightness
that is the truest distinctive mark of this part of Apulia.
From Brindisi, the chief town, to the white cities of the hills
of Murge, to the ancient ones, built in the shadow of the
castle, a territorial entity is defined through a great wealth
of emergencies, regarding landscape, history, art, folklore,
handcraft and traditions.
A sunny land, rich in nature, a coast of remarkable beauty, the
right destination for the lovers of the sea or for the people
who want to go through unpublished routes to discover caves,
castles, cathedrals, rocky settlements, trulli and ancient farms.
Among lots of enchantments, the tourist will be pleased by the
warm true hospitality, the comfort of a modem and varied
reception, the possibility to practice the spare time
activities, the liking to know ancient traditions, the
attraction of a genuine and particularly good cooking." (Dott.
Antonio Vittorio - President A.P.T.)
Brindisi, the gate of East
Very old town, crucible of civilizations and theatre of
events, rightly considered by history, Brindisi grew on the most
Oriental port of Italy, that decided its fortune, determined its
destiny and in a certain way, raised its city image.
Brindisi - the Port
The terminal columns of Via pia, being reflected in the waters of
the inside port, from the top of their steps, watch over
Virgilio's so called last residence and tell all visitors the
glorious story of regina viarum
(Queen of streets) and the numerous events
that made Brindisi famous in the world: here Caesar and
Pompeius engaged in their epic sea-fight, here Antonio and
Octavianus divided the Roman Empire.
After the fall of the Roman power, Brindisi continued to
identify itself with the history of its port that, among ups and
downs, reached a new popularity at the period of the Crusades,
when it became the crossroad for the knights and the pilgrims,
directed to the Sepulcher. In the XIX century, again thanks to
its strategic position, Brindisi determined the fertile
experience of the "Valigia delle Indie" (merchandise from
India), that changed the town in a rich commercial emporium,
linking up London and Bomaby.
Fragments of history, whose remains are still found in the city
road system, following the interesting routes we suggest, to
know the original system of fortification of the ancient
Brindisi, to admire the dignified refinement of its buildings,
the imposing residences of Knights Templars, the magnificence of
its churches, and at last, to discover the authentic essence of
the town, called by Federico Il "filia solis" (sun's daughter)
for the particular Mediterranean light of this extraordinary
outpost towards the East.
Ceglie San Domenico
Between sea and sweet hills: the
white and blue towns
The last spurs of the eastern "Murge" characterize the
part of the land placed at the boundaries of the provinces of
Bari and Taranto. The landscape assumes a fantastic tone: from
the rocky cliffs, the thick forest of the olive trees goes
slowly towards the sea, while over the highest hills stand out
the compact white villages.
These are the white and blue towns: Fassano, Cisternino, Ostuni,
Carovigno, Ceglie Messapica, Villa Castelli and San Michele, a
galaxy of historic centers where everything is improbably clean
and everywhere there is a blinding sun, a light without shades
and without half tones.
Ancient towns, made of light and white, wedged and extraordinary
unicum that is the "Murgia" of the "trulli" fancifully
characterized by a tangle of inextricable narrow streets
bristling, winding, going up and down and by a crowding of white
houses and by a following of small arches and overpasses.
Fasano, languidly located in the olive groves looks towards the
sea where the history and the landscape melt in an harmonic
synthesis and where the ruins of the ancient Egnatia tell the
origins of the town.
Behind its shoulders there is the "Selva",
a pleasant place with clear colors, relaxing atmosphere and,
hidden between the secular oaks, the mastic trees and the Holm
oaks there are lots of "trulli" and ancient and aristocratic
villas. At 400 meters there is Cisternino with a fantastic
architecture of milky houses and hazardous exterior stairs. The
Valle d'Itria extends with its "trulli" at the bottom of the
Lilliputian historic center, recently recognized among the most
beautiful villages of Italy.
Between the green country and the blue sea there is Ostuni, the
bright town with the white slaked limes. Above the building
circle of walls, the historic center develops over the side of
the hill, at the top of which there is the soaring tympanum of
the cathedral. From the houses, hidden in a singular whiteness,
thousands of small windows look over the splendid panorama and,
at the horizon, the intense colors of the sea go beyond the
limits of the limpid blue of the sky. In the distance the cave "Grotta
della Maternita'" watches over the city and tells about a land
inhabited since the prehistory.
Near there, Carovigno presses round its castle, keeping almost
untouched the original feudal structure. The frame around the
ancient Carbinia, is a fertile country, rich of olive trees and
characterized by an extraordinary beautiful coast of great
environmental value.
Ceglie Messapica gathers over the top of its hill, where the
ancient "messapica" acropolis rose, appearing to the visitor
with a surprising scenery.
The powerful massive structure of the
castle stands out over the white houses of the people and in the
silent squares, in the narrow streets animated by colored
talkers spread the stimulating smells of gastronomy with
irresistible attractions.
Villa Castelli, more isolated, is a breath of serenity in the
luxury of the agrarian landscape. The quiet small town has its
proud in the beautiful ducal palace, that today has been
transformed in a comfortable town-residence, and its identity
element in the "gravina" (canyon) that crosses and divides the
built-up area, giving out into the air the smells of the
Mediterranean underbrush that there grows in its various
essences.
In this area, as in the rest of the land of Brindisi, noble
handcraft-activities offer exclusive manufactures for
creativity, materials and abilities: through and interlacement
only guided by hands take shape the different kinds of baskets,
wonderful products of an ancient art; beds, gates, lanterns are
the wonderful objects of the artisanship of the wrought iron,
and then, the charm of the ancient embroideries and the
masterpieces of the patient art of the stonecutter.
Ceglie Messapica
Environment and history in the
town of the plain of Brindisi Where the last cliffs of the "Murgia" degrade, the sweet
and sunny plain of Brindisi extends, as a part of the larger "salentino"
Tableland of which it announces colors and atmospheres.
A stretch of red earth over which the green of the cultivated
lands expresses itself in various shades and that has as
background the sea; in fact a few kilometers farther on the
colors have a new chromatic, the land smells acquire salty
notes that announce the Adriatic blue, always life friend of a
substantially peasant-people.
A calm landscape with few shades and essential contrasts: earth,
tree, stone. Long rows of dry walls mark the luxuriant country
and direct to ancient towns where the vistor will reveal the
less known part of Apulia, bu intact in its identity.
Town burnt by the sunbeams where various evidences of a remote
past that goes from the prehistory until now are brought to a
new life. Archeological sites in the country or hidden under the
medieval built-up areas tell the history of the "Messapi", the
Romans, the Greeks settled in these quarters; castles, baronial
palaces, towers and bastions remind of the conquests of the
Normans, the Suevians, the Angevins or to the dominations of
noble local stocks and link with the plot that has marked the
history of Mesagne, Francavilla Fontana, Oria, Latiano, San
Pietro Vernotico, San Vito dei Normanni, Cellino San Marco, San
Pancrazio Salentino, Erchie, Sandonaci, Torre Santa Susanna and
Torchiarolo.
Cathedrals, sanctuaries, small rural churches look after real
art treasures, testifying the faith of a people and the
patronage of noble families. Suggestive underground ways reveal
rocky settlements made more charming by the pictorial signs left
in this area by the "basiliano" monasticism.
Between nature and history Going between the sea and the inside, the visitor will
know an environment interwoven with the colors of nature where
the rural background, fruit of man's labor, is added
harmonically to the natural background without tearing or
disorders.
The shapes and colors of the country transform into the most
vivid shades of the sea views.
Here a multicolored-series of coast-beauties of great
environmental importance await the visitor: a discontinued
sequence of beaches, hidden small bays, enchanted creeks,
crenellated stretches of coast and, in the locality of Pilone-lido
Morelli, between the coast of Ostuni and that of Fasano there
are the suggestive gold sand dunes, covered with the
Mediterranean underbrush and guarded by a tower of the XVI
century.
In this journey through the landscape of Brindisi, an important
halting place is the area of Torre Guaceto, where nature, more
than elsewhere, has given its gifts. It's a place of very
ancient settlement since the bronze age, that then was visited
by the "Messapi", the Romans and the "Aragonesi", who, in the
XVI century, built a tower to protect the coast from the pirate
attacks.
The land of Brindisi gives to the nature lovers the chance to
enjoy places of particular interests: the "Saline Regie", a
system of coast basins recognized as "oasis of protection of the
fauna"; the "Canale Cillarese", a potting of about 276 hectares
that gives shelter to different aviculture species and where,
during spring, it's possible to observe the passing of rare
species such as the crane; the humid area of "Giancola" a long
watercourse coasted by plants and where, hidden in
the Mediterranean underbrush, there are the foxes, badgers and
hedgehogs' lairs.
In Tuturano the wood of S. Teresa is the last tip of the most
eastern European and Mediterranean place of the cork oak, this
wood area declared oasis of protection.
In the land of Francavilla Fontana, on the boundaries with the
towns of Ceglie Messapica and Villa Castelli, the woodland area
"Bottari" stretches for 120 hectares at the bottom and on the
sides of the narrow valley bearing the same name, showing Holm
oaks and English oaks of remarkable dimensions. In this journey
at the discovery of nature the "Selva di Fasano" is a compulsory
stop, a splendid settlement at the bottom of a valley of
remarkable landscaping interest where there is a faunistic-park
that stretches on 120 hectares, the "zoosafari",
a suggestive corner of savannah in the land of Puglia.
