Leuca

Leuca represents the extreme point of the heel of Italy, the land of fusion between Adriatic Sea and Ionian Sea and between oriental and western cultures. Enchanting and suggestive for history and legends, the city has got numerous natural caves that open to the visitors, surrounded by the blue sea. Leuca is a particular religious tourist centre above all in the area of the Basilica Pontificia Santa Maria de Finibus Terrae (at the edge of the Earth).

Histories and legends,...

Important historical findings have been found in its sea caves. Leuca, once called Capo Iapigio, has been founded in ancient epoch and it owes its name to the Greek language "Lucos", that is white, the colour that mirrors the landscape of this fantastic place. The legend tells that the arrival of the apostle Pietro on this earth caused the collapsing of the old Temple devoted to the goddess Minerva: every good Christian should visit this place to conquer the kingdom of the skies.

...monuments and outskirts.

Leuca represents the far east point of Italy and for its geographical shape it offers the dawn and the sunset in the sea. It is rich of beautiful liberty villas of the end of the XIX century with a mixture of Gothic, Arab, Doric art. They have got the shape of castles, of pagodas or other different styles. Tourists admire the natural creeks of the sea which were particular places reserved to the women's bath at the beginning of the XX century, the lighthouse, the most important after the Genoa one, the Basilica Pontificia di Santa Maria de Finibus Terrae with the three enormous portals in bronze, the terminal column of the Pugliese aqueduct, the wonderful sea caves, among which the Cave of Porcinara and the Cave of the Devil, the point in which the waters of the Ionian Sea meet with the Adriatic ones. In the outskirts a lot of monuments and works can be admired: the One Hundred Stones in Patù, the "Vore" of Barbarano, the Castle of Morciano, the Building "Ceulli" in Salve , the ghost village between Castrignano del Capo and Leuca close to the "Canalone di San Vincenzo" rich in caves, where an old river flows.