Italy, Puglia, the Salento and Lecce
Those new to Italy are usually surprised to learn how the concept of the country of Italy really only exists outside of Italy. Inside, the nation has nearly none of classic, unifying elements that make up a nation: agriculture, geography, culture, economy, history or even language. Indeed, much of Italy doesn’t speak Italian as its first language (for many, comprehension and general use didn’t come about until the advent of television).
Historically, the Alps protected Northern Italy from invasion. Central Italy employed the citadel. The south though has always had the deadly cocktail of being impossible to protect- most of the south are islands and peninsulas- and deeply appealing for those needing to feed, water and house their invading navies.
Italy probably shouldn’t even be a single country, so different from village to village, town to town, region to region.
Puglia
Puglia’s is Italy’s fertile garden and vineyard dangling down into the Mediterranean (it produces 40% of all Italian wine and over 50% of the nation’s olive oil). Puglia has more coastline than half of the world’s countries and the consistently ranks first or second each year for national (domestic) tourism, the place that Italy chooses to holiday.
You’re not likely to see this though, as statistically you’re not likely to visit in the month of August.
The Salento
The Salento is Puglia’s southern-most, semi-autonomous subregion. It corresponds to
a) the part of Puglia founded by the Messapians, a pre-historic people that came out of Mesopotamia across the Dalmatian coast,
b) the part of Puglia that speaks Sicilian rather than Pugliese dialects,
c) the part that favours il negroamaro as its principal wine grape,
d) the only part of Italy that includes barley flour in its pasta,
e) the part of Puglia that becomes a true peninsula, rising out of the Ionian and Adriatic seas.
The landscape here alternates 4 elements: the blue sea on the horizon, countless cactus plants, millions of olive trees and rolling vineyards, repeated over and over, often side by side one another in countless reconfigurations.
Lecce
Lecce remains one of Italy’s prettiest cities, largely due to its consistency of building materials and its single architectural epoch. The area has been inhabited for at least 70,000 years with the city of Lecce having 5,000 years of documented history. While a thoroughly modern city, the original and still-observed urban planning goes back to pre-Greek era.
Lecce is one of Italy’s most vibrant cultural capitals, with 25,000 students, (as well as Italy’s nanotechnology centre) with a robust opera season, international film festival and many, many city-wide wine festivals, administered and cherished by the city’s over 1,000 licensed sommelier.
Lecce is also national and international film town, with TV and film crews nearly always present, taking full advantage of the city’s haunting baroque beauty.
