Otranto, Italy ~ Old Seaside Paradise Found

Gateway to the Adriatic. Fortified seaside town almost on the southern heel of Italy, full of history, beaches & shopping.

della provincia di Lecce in Puglia

Footage: Brian & Sanae
July 2022

In Roman times, Otranto was a city perhaps more important than Brindisi.

In the 8th century, it remained in the hands of the Byzantine emperors until it was among the last cities of Apulia to surrender to the Norman Robert Guiscard in 1068.

In 1480, Sultan Mehmed II sent an Ottoman fleet to invade Rome under the command of Gedik Ahmed Pasha and Otranto was captured. All of the male inhabitants were slaughtered by the victorious Ottomans. Of the 22,000 inhabitants there were only 10,000 that were left alive. Some 800 citizens, known as the "Martyrs of Otranto," were beheaded after refusing to convert to Islam. They were canonized by Pope Francis on 12 May 2013.

From 1480, the Turks controlled the city for 13 months. On 11 September 1481 the Turks abandoned the city. In 1537, the famous Turkish corsair and Ottoman admiral Barbarossa recaptured Otranto and the Fortress of Castro, but the Turks were again repulsed from the city and from the rest of Apulia.

Situato sulla costa adriatica famosa come centro turistico a livello internazionale grazie alla presenza di strutture ricettive e complessi turistici nati già a partire dalla fine degli anni Sessanta del Novecento e progettati da importanti architetti.

Otranto posto nella punta più estrema della penisola salentina e risulta il comune più orientale d'Italia: il capo omonimo, chiamato anche Punta Palascìa, a sud del centro abitato, è il punto geografico più a est della penisola italiana. [Wikipedia]