Infinite possibilities of green routes in this beautiful land: hiking in the countryside, walks in the woods of oak and holm oak, cycling routes in the Mediterranean lined paths, etc. In addition, many of the coastal areas of the Capo di Leuca (Tricase, Castrignano del Capo Gagliano del Capo, Tiggiano, etc.) Within the Costa Park Otranto – Santa Maria di Leuca and Tricase Forest, established by the Puglia Region in order to safeguard the coast East of Salento, rich in precious architectural monuments and important species of animals and plants.
On the peninsula there are also several natural parks and protected areas, which allow you to see real paradise.
In the immediate vicinity of our holiday home in Marina di Novaglie, you can enjoy the beautiful landscape of the Natural Park Costa Otranto-Santa Maria di Leuca. With more than fifty kilometers of coastline and 3200 hectares of land is the largest regional parks established in the province of Lecce. A road with a thousand curves is the historic backbone of the breathtaking landscape; by terraced olive groves to the cliffs overlooking the sea a natural spectacle. No coincidence here, where the last stretch of the Adriatic gives way to the Ionian, born a large Protected Area, established by Regional Law in 2006 and became part of the network of reserves and natural parks of the Salento; a long strip of land between two historic bastions of the coast Torre del Serpe, an old lighthouse of Roman origin, place of legendary events narrated by Maria Corti in “The siren song“, opens the door of the park, in the most point east of Italy (Palascìa) and directs us on an exciting journey through picturesque creeks, pastures, pine forests, olive groves, small woods and deep ravines up to the mighty of Leuca lighthouse, then finishing in the Finis terrae, where even Italy and ends look over to another continent.
On the Ionian coast, on the other hand, you can visit the Regional Natural Park of Ugento Coast, a natural park established in 2007, bounded by San Giovanni Lido Marini and Torre towns. Protection, for a depth of about three kilometers from the coast and for a length of eight, a coastal sequence very valuable, constituted by a dune and retrodunale system, by a series of tidal basins and connecting channels, by imposing a fossil cliff with ravines and the largest of the Mediterranean area of Salento. The park covers about 1600 hectares and is characterized by a high variety of natural environments. They recognize, proceeding from the sea inland, the end of the sandy and rocky coasts, wet dune environments, those marshy and wooded areas, the Mediterranean, the olive groves and “gavinelle” karst gullies carved into the rock from ‘water.
More distant but no less important it is the Regional Natural Park Forest and Swamps Rauccio which extends in the immediate vicinity of the town of Lecce. 18 hectares of land are occupied by oak trees, residual evidence of the “Forest of Lecce“, a wooded area in the Middle Ages was developed in an area between Lecce and the Adriatic coast, Otranto and Brindisi. Adjacent to the holm oak, there is a marshy area called mirrored the Milogna covering an area of about 90 ha; There are, then, two coastal basins, and Idume Fetida, about 4 has, the modest extent of Mediterranean maquis, garrigue and, finally, an extended coast about 4 km.