Sanarica · Poggiardo · Ortelle · Castro · LE
Four municipalities in the province of Lecce, from the dolines of Sanarica to the coast of Castro. The thread that the sources read support is that of the Greek rite and of the diocese of Castro: the Municipality of Poggiardo links its crypt of Santa Maria degli Angeli to the church of the Santi Stefani at Vaste and to the Madonna della Grotta at Ortelle, among the church-crypts around Otranto; Ortelle, according to Wikipedia (to be re-checked), was a parish of the diocese of Castro until 1818, and when the raids emptied Castro the bishop's seat passed to Poggiardo. The hypothesised theme, “landscape and devotion”, thus holds only in part: the landscape enters with the dolines, the valley of the Canali and the sea caves, but for Sanarica no official source could be read and the account there is brief. It is a journey for those who gladly go underground.
At a glance
Duration. 4 days.
The route
Day 1 — Sanarica
You set out from a hollow in the limestone. According to Wikipedia, the only source read on Sanarica because the Municipality's website could not be reached, the dolines of the territory are small and shallow, formed by the dissolution of the rock; the exception is the Conca Sant'Angelo, which grew until the collapse of the vault above the karst conduits, where a living nativity scene is staged at Christmas. The same entry, to be re-checked, places under the mother church a Basilian crypt that re-emerged in the 1960s, and describes San Salvatore, an 11th-century church with three apsed naves and a bell gable, now owned by the Municipality. The Santuario della Madonna delle Grazie, rebuilt in 1712, is called in the Catasto onciario of 1749 “chiesa della Madonna della Reuma e della Sciatica”. On the boundary with Muro Leccese the menhir of the Croce di Sant'Antonio, 408 centimetres high, stands at a crossroads. Poggiardo, to the south-east, is the next stage.
Day 2 — Poggiardo
The day begins beneath the roadway of via Don Minzoni. There, according to the Municipality of Poggiardo, the crypt of Santa Maria degli Angeli arose around the year 1000, declined in the 15th century as the village grew, and in the 16th century was filled with rubble and suppressed; it was found again by chance in 1929, during an excavation. In the same century, the Municipality recalls, the diocesan synod of 1583, convened by the Archbishop of Otranto Pietro Corderos, sanctioned its abandonment in Salento. The singular detail comes from the Tipikon of the monastery of San Nicola di Casole, compiled under Abbot Biagio (1342-1363), where it is noted that the “papas Michele di Pugiardo” had returned a book of chants he had borrowed. Because of the damp the frescoes were detached and taken to the Istituto Centrale del Restauro in Rome; the museum that houses them, in the municipal gardens of piazza Episcopo, was inaugurated on 12 June 1975 in the presence of the President of the Council of Ministers Aldo Moro, and in 1999 the crypt was made accessible, with copies on fireproof polystyrene. Among the figures, beneath the Santo Stefano, is a graffito that a source cited by the Municipality dates to 1586. In the village the Municipality points out the Chiesa Matrice di San Salvatore, with origins at least in the 14th century, a Baroque façade and on the portal the coat of arms with a grazing bovine. After the destruction of Castro, the bishop's residence moved here.
Day 3 — Vaste and Ortelle
At Vaste, a hamlet of Poggiardo, you walk inside a Messapian city. The Municipality identifies it with the ancient Basta cited by Pliny and Ptolemy, and measures its scale by its walls: from the mid-4th century BC a circuit of about 3,350 metres, with two lines of blocks and an earth rampart, enclosed more than 77 hectares. The excavations directed for over fifteen years by Francesco D'Andria of the Università del Salento have yielded a hoard of 150 silver staters and seventeen ivory tesserae lusoriae of the Roman period; of the caryatids of the hypogeum of the same name, one is in the Museo Castromediano in Lecce, the others in the Museo Nazionale di Taranto. The finds that remained are in the Museo Archeologico della Civiltà Messapica, in the Palazzo Baronale on piazza Dante. At Vaste the Municipality also places the church of the Santi Stefani, the third of the church-crypts it links to Poggiardo and to Ortelle.
Ortelle, the Region writes, includes the hamlet of Vignacastrisi, and its Cripta della Madonna della Grotta attests that the area was already frequented in the Middle Ages; Wikipedia, to be re-checked, dates it to the 13th century, carved into the calcarenite with three apsed naves. The rock explains the landscape: in the larghi of San Vito and Scianniche tufo blocks were quarried which written documents say were used for the cathedral of Castro, and the quarries erased almost the whole rock settlement, except two crypts. The same entry describes the Canali area, an incision of about 850 metres with a watercourse that flows from autumn to spring, karst caves, dry-stone terraces and centuries-old olive trees, inside the Parco Costa Otranto-Leuca, which counts Ortelle among its municipalities. The Wikipedia entry on Vignacastrisi, to be re-checked, recalls that Vignacastrisi grew in 1537 with the survivors of Castro. If those documents cited by Wikipedia are accurate, the stone of Ortelle would be found again, the next day, in the cathedral.
Day 4 — Castro
Castro is read from its rock. The Municipality's portal derives the name from the Greek Kastron and recalls that the Romans called it Castrum Minervae; walls and sanctuary of Athena date from the 4th century BC. The sanctuary came to light because of a sewer: in 2000, in the locality of Capanne, the Messapian walls emerged, and in 2015 a headless bust of Athena with a Phrygian helmet, in pietra leccese, found lying on one side, perhaps deliberately laid down after the demolition of the temple; restored, the statue has been on display since March 2023 and the Municipality places it in the Museo Archeologico in the castle. The rock also explains the history of the diocese, an episcopal see from 682 and suppressed in 1818, and of the county, which passed from 1103 through the Altavilla, the Orsini del Balzo and the Gattinara until 1806: for the Municipality the raids of 1537 and of 1573 drove counts and bishops to abandon the city and the population towards the hinterland. The cathedral bears an inscription with the date 1171 and was reconsecrated to the Annunziata in 1576 by Bishop Luca Antonio Resta; on the north side, about two metres below the street, the Byzantine quincunx crypt preserves Sant'Onofrio and the Baptist, and in the 18th century served as a cemetery.
The second half of the day goes down to the sea. The Santuario della Madonna di Pompei, which gives its name to the regional route of 2015, was built between 1893 and 1895 to a design by Baron Filippo Bacile di Castiglione; the statue of the Virgin, by Achille De Lucretiis, was commissioned by the fishermen after the storm surge of 30 December 1896. On the coast, the Zinzulusa was described for the first time in 1793 by the Bishop of Castro Antonio Francesco del Duca and opened to the public in 1957; the hall called the Duomo is 25 metres high and was once covered by 5.7 metres of guano. The journey, in our proposal, ends here.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 8 defects corrected · not approved