Salento

Salento (Salentu in the Salentino dialect) is a geographic region at the southern end of the administrative region of Apulia in Southern Italy. It is a sub-peninsula of the Italian Peninsula, sometimes described as the "heel" of the Italian "boot".

It encompasses the entire administrative area of the province of Lecce, a large part of the province of Brindisi and part of that of Taranto.

The peninsula is also known as Terra d'Otranto, and in the past Sallentina. In ancient times it was called variously Calabria or Messapia.

History

Messapia (from Greek Μεσσαπία) was the ancient name of a region of Italy largely corresponding to modern Salento. It was inhabited chiefly by the Messapii in classical times. Pokorny derives the toponym from the reconstructed PIE *medhyo-, "middle" and PIE *ap-, "water" (Mess-apia, "amid waters"). Pokorny compares the toponym Messapia to another ancient Italic toponym, Salapia, "salt water", a city in Apulia.

Geography

Beach in Conca Specchiulla, north of Otranto.

Salento peninsula is composed of limestone, dividing the Adriatic Sea from the Ionian Sea. Known also as "peninsula salentina", from a geo-morphologic point of view it encompasses the land borders between Ionian and the Adriatic Seas, to the “Messapic threshold”, a depression that runs along the Taranto-Ostuni line and separates it from the Murge.

Its borders are:

Taranto, in the Province of Taranto
Pilone, in the territory of Ostuni, in the Province of Brindisi
Santa Maria di Leuca, in the Province of Lecce.

Cities and towns in Salento

Language

Salento, from a cultural and linguistic point of view, does not include the city of Taranto, where the Tarantino dialect is spoken, nor the part of the province of Taranto to the west of the city (where Pugliese is the dialect generally spoken), nor the rest of the province of Brindisi to north of Ostuni (where the accent is influenced by the dialect of Bari).

To the south and east of the above areas, an Italian dialect known as Salentino is spoken, as well as a Hellenic dialect known as Griko – a legacy of the settlement of Greeks in southern Italy during ancient times.

Transportation

The nearest international airports are those of Brindisi and Bari (the latter is out of Salento but not far).

A 2-lane freeway connects Salento to Bari. The main railway line ends at Lecce. Other locations are served by regional railroads.

Leisure ports are those of: Taranto, Brindisi, Campomarino di Maruggio's tourist and leisure Marina, Gallipoli, Santa Maria di Leuca, Otranto.

Coastal towers

The coastal towers in Salento are coastal watchtowers, as the peninsula's coast was long subject to maritime attacks. The first towers may have been Norman. The remaining historic towers are mostly from the 15th and 16th centuries. Many are now in ruins.^[1]^[2]