Have car will travel: Otranto, Castro Marina, Santa Maria Leuca, Gallipoli

by Renee · Published May 4, 2025 · Updated May 6, 2025

We began our day with the delicious typical Galatina pastry provided to us by our host Donatella, along with fresh loquat from her tree in the mountains.

Our goal was to check out both the Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea.

Our first stop was Otranto. Otranto is a coastal town in southern Italy’s Apulia region. It’s home to the 15th-century Aragonese Castle and 11th-century Otranto Cathedral. We found it to be a typical Italian town with the protective wall and castle and basilica in the central Square. The beaches here were very sandy and beautiful with many young families. We did not spend a lot of time here but poked our heads into the cathedral where a wedding was in progress.
We took the coastal route and our next stop was supposed to be Castro Marina, but we stopped a couple of times along the way.
A trail with a beautiful view caught our eye and we saw many hikers which we believe is part of The Southern Via Francigena, a historic pilgrimage trail, runs through Puglia, connecting Rome to the main ports for embarkation to the Holy Land. This route, also known as the Camino to Rome, stretches from Canterbury to Santa Maria di Leuca, covering approximately 900 km and passing through various towns and cities in Puglia. Pilgrims have historically used this path to reach Rome and the ports for travel to the Holy Land.

A very colorful palace caught our eye so we stopped to check it out. It was the Villa Sticchi in the town of Santa Cesarea. The villa is one of the most important expressions of Moorish style, a genre widespread in the 19th century seaside resorts of Salento, which is the name of the region in this area. The town of Santa Cesarea is one of the largest centers for thermal baths in the Salento. The use of the waters, coming from four caves, dates back to the 16th century.

We were very happy that we waited to eat lunch in Castro Marina because the area was simply gorgeous and the water was beautiful. We had lunch by the sea, freah grilled fish. After we ate we dangled our feet in the Adriatic Sea.

We continued south to Santa Marina de Leuca. This town is the bottom of the heel of Italy. We wanted to see the Ionian Sea so we drove to Gallipoli and we were very shocked and surprised at how large the town was. The old town was the biggest that we have seen in all of Puglia so far. There were marching bands playing all over the place. We did walk to the beach and put our feet in the Ionian Sea. The beaches were not as pretty as the Adriatic, but maybe we were getting very tired by this point and just wanting to go back to Galatina , so our view could have been tainted. It was only about a 30 minute drive back. We freshened up and had a very nice dinner in a local restaurant. We ended our evening with a very delicious gelato.