EDITORIAL
“A
nother little big victory for Puglia: its “heel” – Salento – is the best loved territory of Italians, according to a survey carried out by “Italia Touristica” at the beginning of the year.
An e-mail which was sent out to 230.000 Italians, equally distributed among all the regions, asked people to indicate the Italian territory they most loved, and include a brief motivation for their choice. Within the set date, 42.306 replies were received, and the territory which received the greatest number of preferences (4.361) was Salento, followed by better-known territories like the Cinque Terre (3.816 preferences), the Amalfi coast, Chianti, and Versilia.
The motivations that led people to prefer Salento were: the sea, the cordiality, the cooking and the wine, the hospitality, the Baroque architecture, the olive oil, the music, the olive groves and the traditions.
The survey was presented at the BIT, the International Tourism Fair, in Milan, and confirms the trend for the increasing appreciation of our territories.
Salento’s mild climate makes it pleasant to visit in any period of the year, but the real magic begins in Spring, in March, with an explosion of greenery and blossom that make the countryside magical, but that only lasts for the blinking of an eye. In May the sunshine is already strong enough to dry everything up and the sumptuous seaside season gets under way, the season of the beaches and the light that seems never-ending.
Between March and May, peach and cherry trees blossom, while the white almond blossom, precocious as ever, announced the beginning of the new season as early as the end of January. The land is covered in green grass, and everywhere is a triumph of multi-colored blooms: poppies, daisies, calendula and crocuses. Off the beaten track wild orchids flower. Migrating birds and small reptiles, waking from their hibernation, enliven the fields and marshes.
And then our food, our wine and our music. We have dedicated our March interview to the young – amazing – musicians of the “Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino”. They bring their explosive energy with them on stage, and the success, the warm reaction and enthusiasm they’ve generated with their music, in the U.S. and elsewhere, has been enormous.
Another homage to the results of this survey is that of Lino Patruno, who dedicates his moving prose to Lecce – not without a deserved pinch of criticism – and to the elegance of its Baroque.
To evade from the myriad ills which afflict us at the moment, to take the plunge into Beauty, follow the trend, come and start a new season, come and be re-born: in Salento.
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