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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.)
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.
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 colours of the sea go beyond the limits of the limpid blue of the sky. In the distance the cave "Grotta della Maternità" 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.
Environment and history in the
town of the plain of Brindisi
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. 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 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.
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