" Puglia is continuous discovery, amazement, breathing, between the sea, headlands, olive trees, trulli, farms, churches, castles, alleys, dry stone walls, wild lands, unlimited horizons and unforgettable sunsets".
Fabrizio Caramagna
From Matera, city of the Sassi, to Taranto, city of the two seas
Matera
And raising my eyes I finally saw the whole of Matera appear, like an oblique wall. From there it almost looks like a real city. The facades of all the caves, which look like houses, white and aligned, seemed to be looking at me, with the holes in the doors, like black eyes. It is truly a beautiful, picturesque and impressive city.
Carlo Levi, Christ stopped at Eboli
Matera, city of the Sassi, a UNESCO world heritage site since 1993, unique, fascinating and spectacular, is one of the oldest cities in the world, chosen as a film set by many directors such as Pierpaolo Pasolini with The Gospel according to Matthew and Mel Gibson with The Passion of Christ.
The tour includes a visit to the Sassi di Matera in the morning, the ancient neighborhoods dug into the rock close to the ravine. The evocative visit to the ancient city, between the Barisano and Caveoso districts, is a continuous up and down through narrow streets bordered by cave-houses, churches and cisterns. The panoramic balconies overlooking the gravina are spectacular, a deep canyon dug by the water, which delimits and embraces the perimeter of the city.
Taranto
A perfect city. Living there is like living inside a shell, an open oyster. Here new Taranto, there, crowded, old Taranto, around the two seas, and the seafronts.
Pierpaolo Pasolini, "The long sandy road"
Founded by the Spartans in the 8th century BC, the city soon became one of the most important póleis of Magna Graecia maintaining, over the following centuries, a central role in the Mediterranean both in the cultural and commercial fields.
The suggestive old city, the ancient Greek acropolis on which historic buildings, the castle and the main churches have been built over the centuries, is located on an island connected to the mainland by two bridges.
The visit to Taranto starts from MARTA , one of the most important archaeological museums in the world, and then continues with the Aragonese castle overlooking the Mar Grande. The tour continues in the old city , starting from Piazza Castello with the Doric columns and along Via Duomo with a stop at the Cathedral church of San Cataldo.
Don't miss tasting Taranto mussels, famous throughout the world.
Land of the ravines between nature, history and art
The ravine of Laterza
For trekking and nature lovers, this fascinating excursion into the largest canyon in Europe is absolutely worth trying.
After crossing a centuries-old olive grove, you will continue along the paths of the ravine and, among areas of fragno woodland and Mediterranean scrub, you will be able to admire a unique landscape characterized by high and spectacular rock walls. If you are lucky you will be able to observe the majestic Egyptian vultures and the agile lesser kestrels that travel the length and breadth of the ravine. The tour includes a break where it will be possible to taste the famous Laterza bread with organic oil.
The caves of God, Mottola
The Mottola area preserves some of the most beautiful and best preserved medieval rock churches in Southern Italy. The so-called caves of God, the rock churches of San Nicola, San Gregorio, Sant'Angelo, are among the most significant and evocative examples of the medieval "cave culture": small architectural jewels dug into the rock, they preserve frescoes of male and female saints in where the Eastern artistic tradition meets the Western one.
The rock church of San Nicola, defined as the Sistine chapel of the rock civilization, enchants with its beauty and the exceptional state of conservation of its frescoes. Saints and Madonnas, upon entering the church, observe you while you are fascinated by the severe gaze of Christ in Deesis located in the central apse.
The church of San Gregorio is also suggestive with valuable architectural features and its majestic Pantocrator. The church of Sant'Angelo, connected to an important Benedictine monastery and to the center of the rock village of Casalrotto, is unique in southern Italy for its development on two underground floors.
Palagianello
Palagianello, the smallest and most evocative of the villages on the western side of the province of Taranto, was born as a medieval rock farmhouse on the ramparts of the ravine of the same name and subsequently developed as a small village around the castle starting from 1500. Visit the historic center of Palagianello is like finding yourself in a painting by De Chirico: after passing the monumental door with the clock tower, you find yourself in the main square, bordered by low, white houses and the church of San Pietro with its sober and simple style. A winding path leads from the castle to the ancient Via del Santuario. Along the ravine and the rock village of the same name, you reach the church dedicated to the Madonna delle Grazie, of sixteenth-century origin, rebuilt following an earthquake.
From Taranto, city of the two seas to Lecce, lady of the baroque
Taranto
A perfect city. Living there is like living inside a shell, an open oyster. Here new Taranto, there, crowded, old Taranto, around the two seas, and the seafronts.
Pierpaolo Pasolini, The long sandy road
Founded by the Spartans in the 8th century BC, the city soon became one of the most important póleis of Magna Graecia maintaining, over the following centuries, a central role in the Mediterranean both in the cultural and commercial fields.
The suggestive old city, the ancient Greek acropolis on which historic buildings, the castle and the main churches have been built over the centuries, is located on an island connected to the mainland by two bridges.
The visit to Taranto starts from MARTA, one of the most important archaeological museums in the world, and then continues with the Aragonese castle overlooking the Mar Grande. The tour continues in the old city, starting from Piazza Castello with the Doric columns and along Via Duomo with a stop at the Cathedral church of San Cataldo.
Don't miss tasting Taranto mussels, famous throughout the world.
Lecce
I started going to Lecce little by little, they took me around to see places, I got to know the people and so I ended up falling in love with the people of Lecce and the city.
Ferzan Özpetek
Lecce, "the lady of the baroque", is an elegant and refined city of art, perfect for a tour of culture and relaxation. An important city from the Roman era, it is known above all for its majestic Baroque which, since the end of the 1500s, has transformed the historic center into an open-air museum.
Through Porta Napoli you have access to the historic center from which streets and alleys wind framed by elegant buildings, shops and around forty churches. The symbol of the city is undoubtedly the refined Piazza del Duomo overlooked by the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta (the Duomo), the Bell Tower, the Episcopio, and the Palazzo del Seminario. The heart of the city of Lecce is Piazza Sant'Oronzo with the column of the saint himself, the remains of the Roman amphitheater, the Palazzetto del Sedile.
Don't miss the irresistible “Pasticciotto”.
Taranto, city of the two seas and dolphins
Taranto
A perfect city. Living there is like living inside a shell, an open oyster. Here new Taranto, there, crowded, old Taranto, around the two seas, and the seafronts.
Pierpaolo Pasolini, The long sandy road
Founded by the Spartans in the 8th century BC, the city soon became one of the most important póleis of Magna Graecia maintaining, over the following centuries, a central role in the Mediterranean both in the cultural and commercial fields.
The suggestive old city, the ancient Greek acropolis on which historic buildings, the castle and the main churches have been built over the centuries, is located on an island connected to the mainland by two bridges.
The visit to Taranto starts from MARTA, one of the most important archaeological museums in the world, and then continues with the Aragonese castle overlooking the Mar Grande. The tour continues in the old city, starting from Piazza Castello with the Doric columns and along Via Duomo with a stop at the Cathedral church of San Cataldo.
There are open sea excursions on a catamaran to observe the dolphins that populate the Ionian Sea.
Don't miss tasting Taranto mussels, famous throughout the world.
Between Murge and Valle d'Itria
Trulli, as everyone knows, are conical domed houses. The walls of large limestone ashlars, overlapping each other dry, are covered by a circular roof, made with the same technique, sloping down in concentric circles, similar in shape to a fire extinguisher or a magician's hat. The cone ends in a hole, closed by a large stone and surmounted by a decorative pinnacle. The origin of these constructions is rather obscure. There are those who would like them imported from the Far East. It is not even clear when they began. Some send them back far back over the centuries, but the oldest of those that have come down to us dates back to four centuries ago. Whatever their origin, they are nevertheless part of Apulian orientalism, and the sense of age is lost.
Guido Piovene
In over 100 million years, water in Puglia has dug the subsoil of the region and shaped the surface, a work of painstaking patience that has given us caves embellished with stalactites and stalagmites, sinkholes, ravines and valleys of immeasurable beauty.
The Itria Valley, the southern part of the Murge plateau, is a karst depression that extends between the towns of Locorotondo, Cisternino, Martina Franca, Alberobello.
The Itria valley is a fairy valley suitable for those who love nature and relaxation, where it is nice to get lost among expanses of centuries-old olive trees, dry stone walls, trulli and farms.
Alberobello
Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996, Alberobello is considered the capital of the trulli, due to the characteristic dry constructions which are particularly numerous here and boast a truly particular history.
The area began to be inhabited in the early 16th century on the initiative of the Count of Conversano, but it was mainly from 1600 that the urbanization of the forest began with the construction of a cluster of small houses with cone roofs built only with dry stone walls without the use of mortar. It was an expedient of the local count to avoid paying taxes to the Spanish viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples.
The tour includes a visit to the Sanctuary of the Saints Medici, a masterpiece by the architect Antonio Curri and the narrow streets of the Rione Monti , with its 1000 trulli , which culminate at the top with the Church of Sant'Antonio, also in the shape of a trullo .
Castellana Caves
The Castellana Caves, a complex of underground cavities of karst origin, among the most beautiful and spectacular in Italy, extend for a length of approximately 3 km and reach a maximum depth of 122 meters from the surface. The temperature of the internal environments is around 16.5°C.
An extraordinary guided excursion, in an astonishing setting, where caves with fantastic names, canyons, deep abysses, fossils, stalactites, stalagmites, concretions with incredible shapes and surprising colors excite adults and children alike.
From the Itria Valley to the Adriatic Sea
Provincial Martina Franca is only up to a certain point. The approach to the small city (which can't really be called a country) is gradual like a Rossini crescendo. The first trulli appear among the greenery of the vineyards. First single and scattered, then in pairs, in agglomerations, white teats of cows upside down and buried, small Saint Justine from Padua, small Saint Marks of Venice imitated by a child with white sands like those of Santos, or even mosques, Scythian tents or of Tartars, something oriental, fabulous and fairy-tale, a Disneyland that no imagination ever dreamed of its equal, land of gnomes or the "hobbits" of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".
Mario Praz
Martina Franca
In the heart of the Itria Valley, Martina stands on a hill of over 400 metres. Probably founded during the 10th century, Martina became "Franca" in 1300 when the city was elected municipality by Philip I of Anjou who granted the citizens particular privileges such as franchises and perpetual state ownership.
During the 1700s the city saw an important architectural development in the Baroque style which still today embellishes the beautiful historic center.
Among apotropaic masks, shells and acanthus leaves carved into limestone, among streets, alleys and squares, the tour starts from Piazza XX Settembre. After passing the monumental access gate to the city, we continue up to the Basilica of San Martino with its dizzying Rococo façade, followed by the church of San Domenico with the adjoining fifteenth-century cloister and the small church of San Nicola in Montedoro, a small jewel with frescoes from the Sixteenth century.
From the city the tour continues into the countryside, up to the church of Sant'Antonio ai Cappuccini, an unexpected and admirable jewel of inlaid wooden altars from the second half of the eighteenth century.
Absolutely worth trying is Martina's Capocollo.
Polignano a mare
Curly closed in its medieval dimension, with high walls and rocks overlooking the sea, the ancient village of Polignano has always represented the history, culture and soul of the local people. The marquisal arch introduces the visitor to the clock square with its ancient sundial where the church of S. Maria Assunta stands out which preserves the relics of the patron saint Vito and the nativity scene of Stefano da Putignano, a national monument.
Small streets branch off from the square, paved with stones smoothed by time, which lead the visitor to one of the most fascinating panoramas that the Apulian coast offers, appreciable from the numerous balconies that open onto the enchanting cliff interspersed with sea caves of immeasurable beauty .
The Hellenic way of the Matera journey
The Via Ellenica includes 9 stages over a total of 170 km, connects two UNESCO sites, Alberobello and the Sassi di Matera, and crosses the fascinating Terra delle Gravine, an area dotted with multiple naturalistic and anthropic wonders: starting from the deep and spectacular gorges rocky cliffs (Canyons) which are home to ancient villages and rock churches, decorated with precious medieval frescoes. Along the Camino, embellished with woods, farms and landscapes of unusual beauty, you will discover suggestive villages which, for millennia, have been a crossroads of cultures and a treasure chest of peasant traditions.
The stop points are Martina Franca, Crispiano, Massafra, Mottola, Castellaneta, Palagianello, Laterza, Ginosa and Montescaglioso.
The Camino includes 9 stages for a total of approximately 170 km.
https://camminomaterano.it/via/9/via-ellenica