Maruggio

Maruggio is the Salento that the package-tour Salento misses: a fortified Borghi più belli d'Italia borgo on the Ionian side of the Taranto province, with 5,250 residents inland and an 11-km Bandiera Blu coastline at Campomarino di Maruggio. The hook is the Knights of Malta commenda — the Sovereign Military Order of Malta acquired Maruggio in 1317 and made it their administrative centre for the entire south of Italy until 1819, building the still-standing Commenda gemellata (twin commanderies) of San Pietro and Santo Stefano, and ringing the borgo with eight defensive towers against Saracen raids from the sea. Today four of the towers and substantial stretches of wall survive, the Maltese Cross is carved into doorways throughout the centro storico, and the Chiesa Madre keeps the Order's archives.

The grid of narrow stone-paved vicoli inside the walls is intact — flat-roofed white-and-honey houses, iron balconies, and the Palazzo Ducale (16th-century) on the central piazza. Down at the coast, Campomarino di Maruggio has held the Bandiera Blu for sand quality and water clarity for over a decade; the Riserva Naturale Regionale Palude del Conte e Duna Costiera protects 1,000 hectares of dune and brackish lagoon between the borgo and the sea. The food is Salento at its most distilled: Primitivo and Negroamaro from the surrounding vineyards (Maruggio is a Città del Vino), bombette of pork, panzerotti, ricci di mare in spring, and the local taralli made with fennel seed.