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‘There’s Something in the Air’ in Italy’s Salento

• Published July 25, 2022 Updated July 27, 2022

 

This is an incredible article that is sure to grab your wanderlust by the collar and take you to Puglia (Apulia in Italian).

FYI, Salento is a cultural, historical and 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". Lecce is the main city.

 

 

If you want to turn up your wanderlust jets even further, here are some links to places referenced in the article.........

Castle di Ugento is a 5-star hotel and cooking school (https://castellodiugento.com) located about as far south as one can go in the "stiletto heel" of Italy's boot.

The Awaiting Table is a cooking school (https://awaitingtable.com) with great reviews in the comments section of the article.

The Elvira Castle is just that, a restored castle, now a luxurious hotel. (https://www.castleelvira.com/the-castle/)

The Trapana Masseria (https://www.trapana.com/en/masseria/) is a restored farmhouse that offers a unique experience of new and old.

 

One of the things I really enjoyed about Ms. Cohane's reflections of her stay in Salento was the reference to Galatina and their claim to be the birthplace of Pasticciotti, a desert pastry we featured in our blog post called "Italy FYI" back in April in a Washington Post article. 

 

In the comments section of Ms. Cohane's article someone references driving from Rome to Lecce and routing through Matera, the newest "hot" place to visit courtesy of the latest James Bond film that put Matera back on the map. In fact, Matera and Puglia, both east of Amalfi, are the beneficiary of the throngs of tourists on the Amalfi coast (Yogi Berra didn't say it about Amalfi but he could have........."no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded").

 

We are going to put a package together for our clients that will take them from Rome to one of the Matera hotels used in the movie to a stay in one of the new hotels in Salento, including a residence in one of the cooking schools in Puglia. Let us know if your are interested. It's not too soon to think about summer, 2023.