Mattinata

Mattinata sits at seventy-five meters on the eastern Gargano, the only town in Puglia that looks south onto the Adriatic. The Iapyges, immigrants from Greece and the Balkans, settled the surrounding hills from the fifth century BC; the Roman port of Matinum, on the modern seafront, gave the town its name. The current settlement is younger than most Garganic centers: it was administered as part of Monte Sant'Angelo until 1955, when it became an independent comune.

Above the town, Monte Sacro carries the ruins of the Abbazia della Santissima Trinità, founded around the year 1000 by Benedictine monks, raised to abbey status in 1138 and abandoned in the fifteenth century after being annexed to the abbey of Siponto. The coastline south of town is the most photographed in northern Puglia: Baia delle Zagare, named for the orange and lemon blossom, holds the limestone faraglioni Arco di Diomede and Le Forbici, with Baia di Vignanotica's pebble crescent and dramatic cliffs ten kilometers further south. The Parco Nazionale del Gargano covers all of it.