Salento has got a level round, a sunny landscape, overgrown by almond and orange trees and secular olive trees. With some spurs of Murge.

There are many natural parks, such as those ones in Cesine and Torre Guaceto, or in PortoSelvaggio, but also lots of pine woods (Alimini, Ugento, Torredell'Orso) and the ancient Mediterranean maquis. A crystalline sea permitts to see the depth. Coast is a sort of Heaven with its overhanging cliffs and rocks.

Finally, there is a type of Salento which is hidden, with its underground "monuments" that were created by rain of rivers underground, where limestone plasms the ground and creates gorges, dolines, galleries, caves e coves. A world to discover, up and under the Salento's land, which is the background also for this edition of the Salento International Film Festival.

PLACE TO VISIT

Lecce, Capital of the Province and Capital of Barocco pugliese, is named "Florence of Barocco", because of its beautiful Church and Palace, which were built between the XVI and the XVIII century, near preexisted Reinassance and Romanesque edifices.

Discovering Salento is passing through two particular routes which star from Lecce: one of this is along the Riviera azzurra salentina, towards Otranto, and continues until Capo di Leuca; the other one is along the Riviera nirentina, on Jonio's seashore, towards Nardò up to Gallipoli. Along the coastal plain, full of rocks almost entirely, seascapes open to San Cataldo, San Foca, Otranto, Torre dell'Orso, Santa Cesarea, until Capo di Leuca (with the Santuario della Madonna "Finibus Terrae", pilgramages destination.

Itinerary from Lecce to Gallipoli offers to the tourists many other beauties and wonders: seaside resorts, soft beaches and a blue sky along the Jonio's coast. Next to Nardò, that is the ancient "Niretum" (Messapic origin, but also Roman guildhall and Bizantine fortress), which conserves a grandiose Romanesque Cathedral, there is the Riviera nirentina, with seascapes, beaches and pine woods: Santa Caterina di Nardò, Santa Maria al Bagno, Torre Suda, Porto Cesareo and Gallipoli (this town really merits to the "beautiful" adjective that is in the Greek etymology.)