I’ve had two consistent companions as I follow the coast southward through Puglia, both reminders of more violent pasts. The less striking, by design, are the pillboxes, only poking a meter or so above the ground. Built during World War II to fend off an Allied invasion, these pop up every handful of kilometers, generally holding a geographically advantageous spot, with extended line of sight in both directions along the coast.
More dramatic, by far, is the network of towers lining the Ionian, nearly all following the same formula–a single, stubby, square tower accessed around its midpoint by a majestic, double-arched staircase. At this point, I can’t even recall when I encountered my first, but on this morning out of Porto Cesareo it doesn’t take long to hit another–the Torre Squillace–just on the side of the eponymous lagoon. This tower dates to 1570, a period in which a building spree was well underway in this area, drawing the attention of “pirates and barbarians,” as the municipal government’s website characterizes the threat. The Royal Engineers of Naples were sent here to build a network of towers, including Squillace and the others I’m passing by.
The walking is flat and mostly easy, though some stretches require hopping through jagged coastal rock, eroded over the years to an overly aggressive sort of swiss cheese aesthetic. It’s hardy stuff, though, and I soon place absolute confidence in every pointed shard, trusting that it will hold under my weight. As was true yesterday, the small communities along the way are sparingly populated. No reason to be concerned about invasion today!
Nonetheless, more towers come in quick succession. Torre Sant’Isidoro, somehow damaged enough in its first decades to require rebuilding in 1622. Torre dell’Inserraglio, squattier than the rest and lacking the elevated staircase, follows. Torre Uluzzo is next, but it stands in ruin, suffering from the worst condition of any of these towers. Even still, it’s easy to see the bigger picture now, and appreciate how quickly these towers could signal one another, passing messages up and down the coast when confronted with pirate raids.
It’s gauche to complain about getting to walk along the coast all day, but I confess that some desire for novelty at this point. Since the middle of the previous day, the scenery had remained fairly consistent–rock, scrub brush, grass, and shuttered villages. I could really go for a decent hill, just to shift my perspective! Well, almost immediately, nature delivered–looking ahead, I saw the interior begin to ripple upward, and before long that extended to the coast.
What follows is the most memorable stretch of my “freestyling” south around the boot, following a trail that sometimes appears on short dirt stretches and otherwise dissolves into crumbled rock and small boulders. The gps insists, though, that something navigable persists, so I relinquish all notions of trying to follow it precisely and instead give way to the fun of hopping and scrambling from one big rock to the next, constantly turning back around to see how the view has changed, how the sea water has shifted hues of blue. At one point, I pass a gated entrance to a grotto, surprisingly high on the cliffside, shuffle around a sharp corner and discover a plunging descent. It’s not too dicey in the end, but it wasn’t made for a person with a heavy backpack in mind. I finally reemerge into some semblance of civilization, in the Porto Selvaggio Park, featuring a small, rocky beach surrounded by pine forest. And up ahead, I see my next tower, sitting high atop the next hill, with a view unsurpassed by any of its fellow forts. While most of the ascent is easy enough, I manage to find my way onto the most difficult approach, culminating in ten meters of rock climbing at an elevation from which failure would have brought unfortunate consequences. But turning back would have meant a lot of extra walking!
The Torre dell’Alto not only holds the most dramatic of all positions, it also carries the most evocative–and disturbing–legends. The story goes that the cliff here, known as the Dannata, is where the condemned were tossed into the sea, akin to the conclusion I had just pondered for myself. As the years passed, the purpose of these towers shifted. Even in the early 1700s, fears of plague and cholera generated concern among these coastal communities, particularly from Turkish or Barbary pirate ships, and so these towers were employed as quarantine spaces to hold shipwrecked or surrendered men, not to mention freed Christian slaves, until they had a clean bill of health. Nonetheless, most were abandoned by the mid-1800s, only to receive a new life as artillery stations in World War II.
When I descend the Torre dell’Alto, the world changes. Suddenly, I have transitioned from the world of the plebeians to the paradise of the patricians. The twin communities of Santa Caterina and Santa Maria al Bagno feature well-manicured mansions, shining brightly in the afternoon light, complete with broad sidewalks and bike tracks running alongside the sea. Plenty of locals are out jogging and walking, in snappy fitness apparel. Another tower looms high above, the Torre Santa Caterina, but it doesn’t intrude upon the polished, modern space, yielding the terrain to more delicate affairs. And yet, even in the midst of all of this shine, it’s impossible to escape memories of war. The newly established Museum of Memory and Welcome now stands as a reminder in Santa Maria al Bagno of its former function, decades ago, as a waystation for formerly incarcerated Jews working their way towards Israel, and away from the concentration camps in which they had been held. All told, some 150,000 Jews passed through here between 1943 and 1947, in the hope of finally reaching somewhere safe and secure.
My journey leads me onward to Gallipoli, a stunning city that I’ve seen in the distance for much of the day. The old town sits on an island, like an old turtle basking in the sun, and a short bridge links it to the sprawling modern city. Like Taranto, Gallipoli has Green origins, and in the years that followed–despite its own castle, and so many fortifications up and down the coast–it was sacked by just about every empire in the region.
