Nature, peace and quiet, and you Taking leisurely walks.
In Salento, fortunately nature has always been the thing to govern human lives. Here we are famous for peace and quiet and our calm nature. Behind our calm there is our ability to still admire beauty, to appreciate the little things, getting back – in a certain sense – to being in tune with oneself. Our slow pace of life makes for inward peace.
For some years now Salento has been focusing on the promotion of our slow pace of life, on an idea of being able to enjoy an alternative holiday here, different from the normal kind of hit-and-run holidays that so often erode the landscape and betray the whole identity of Salento. This idea of a slow, sustainable holiday, being a friend of the landscape, also appeals to us here at Montirò Hotel, set in heart of the countryside as we are. The vegetation that surrounds us is the true owner of the house and it soon becomes a travel companion for all our guests.
A ‘zero-speed’ holiday means sitting in a bar in the sunny afternoon; looking out over the sea that, drop by drop, has carved out the famous caves that litter our coast; or maybe lingering outside a bakery to enjoy the scents of cakes and bread wafting from their ovens. But above all, ‘slowness’ it means leaving our cars aside and walking a lot, really seeing the landscape, close up and personal. Leuca has been a land of footpaths for centuries and today more than ever we are working to restore ancient routes, as well as creating new connections that will link us to every part of Salento, and beyond. Here, all paths lead to our seafront promenade, our lighthouse, the Basilica.
A young Frenchman was recently in the news here, who walked the entire Via Francigena path to Leuca: just imagine what marvels he got to see along the way! Leuca is considered the final destination for pilgrims on the Francigena route because once they reached our coast they had only to board a ship to reach Jerusalem. And Leuca is the final destination on another impressive route, too: that from Camposele to Leuca. Called the water cycle way – the ‘Ciclovia dell’acqua’ – it follows the Apulian Aqueduct, which is not only an extraordinary feat of engineering, but also an act of love. Water has dug out some truly amazing places in the south, created some breathtaking landscapes.
In addition to these two most popular routes, you can always enjoy finding your own new routes, for example along the coast from Otranto to Leuca or just from our hotel down to the sea! And on the way, take time out to stop to talk to people, to look at the fields, to take pictures, to breathe in the scent of the sea in the glorious quiet. We are sure that you, too, will agree that, yes, slowness has something of the divine about it and that Salento really is an island that epitomises all that is slowness.