Riserva Naturale
Riserva Naturale in Apulia
9 towns
Apulia has 9 Riserva Naturale communes in our index. They cluster in the Foggia, Taranto, and Lecce provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Castellaneta, Lecce, and Vieste. 6 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Castellaneta
Province: Taranto · 235 m
A cliff-edge Murge town at 235 meters above the Gravina Grande canyon, birthplace of Rudolph Valentino in 1895, with a Bandiera Blu Ionian marina.
Lecce
Province: Lecce · 49 m
The Baroque capital of the Salento, ninety-four thousand people on the Lecce-stone plain, carving its façades in honey limestone since 1500.
Vieste
Province: Foggia · 43 m
The Gargano headland of whitewashed alleys on a white limestone cliff, with the Pizzomunno sea stack standing 26 meters offshore.
Carovigno
Province: Brindisi · 161 m
An upper Salento town between Brindisi and Ostuni, built on the Messapian Carbina destroyed in 473 BC, with the Torre Guaceto marine reserve offshore.
Peschici
Province: Foggia · 91 m
A Gargano cliff-top village above the Adriatic with a Norman castle of 1023, white houses spilling toward the sea and trabucchi on the headlands.
Vico del Gargano
Province: Foggia · 445 m
A Gargano hill town at 445 meters with a Norman castle, a kiss alley, and DOP citrus groves stepping down to the Adriatic.
Manduria
Province: Taranto · 79 m
The Messapian capital thirty-five kilometers east of Taranto, ringed by three concentric stone walls and the home of Primitivo.
Vernole
Province: Lecce · 38 m
A Salento commune ten kilometers from Lecce whose frazione of Acaya is the only Renaissance fortified town in southern Italy.
Martina Franca
Province: Taranto · 431 m
Puglia's second Baroque city after Lecce, on the Itria ridge at 431 meters, with an opera festival in its ducal courtyard since 1975.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Putignano
Province: Bari
Europe's longest-running carnival — Putignano Carnevale has run continuously since 1394, with 631 years of cartapesta papier-mâché floats, a 26,000-resident Murgia town on the Bari–Lecce plateau, and the Grotta del Trullo karst cave inside the centro.
Pistoia
Province: Pistoia
Italy's nursery capital and the medieval Tuscan rival that gave its name to the pistol — a quietly extraordinary centro storico of zebra-striped Romanesque churches, Andrea della Robbia's polychrome frieze on the Ospedale del Ceppo, and Italy's Capital of Culture 2017, all 30 minutes from Florence by train.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Caldes
Province: Trento
A scattered Val di Sole commune on the Noce, six hamlets gathered around a thirteenth-century tower-house castle that once belonged to the Thun family.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.