Published on: 9 April 2013 | Last updated: 14 March 2018
The route starts in Lecce, which, with its elegant baroque centro storico is an absolute gem. It’s well worth taking a day just to chill out and enjoy the city before starting your journey.
From Lecce we head for the coast, and the coastal city of Otranto then to the Finibus Terra (the southernmost tip of the heel of Italy).
This stretch of coastline with its limestone cliffs eroded into fantastic shapes by the action of the sea, is one of the most scenic in Italy - the caves excavated by the sea make it a popular diving destination. Fortunately it has somehow managed to escape overdevelopment is relatively unspoilt and now protected.

Torre Sant’Andrea - Salento coast near Lecce (Puglia). Source: Source Wikimedia Commons
Powered by WP-GPX Maps
tips for using the map

Run your cursor over the graph to show the elevation, and distance from the start, for any given point on the route. (Note: the altitude graph is not shown where the route is flat).

Click the little icon in the right-hand corner to see the map fullscreen
Distances | |
---|---|
Lecce - Otranto | 63 kms |
Otranto - Santa Maria di Leuca | 50 kms |
Santa Maria di Leuca - Gallipoli | 52 kms |
Otranto
Otranto was founded by the Greeks. The old city with its castle and cathedral is pretty compact and well worth the detour - although inevitably there’s a sprinkling of souvenir shop. If you get the chance, pop into the cathedral and admire the mosaic floor. There are lots of nice places to eat, in the centro storico and in the modern part or town.
Otranto was also the setting for Horace Walpole’s novel The Castle of Otranto the first gothic novel and forerunner to the horror genre. Walpole himself had never been anywhere near Otranto.
Place names:
Otranto was founded by the Greeks and like the other greek words in Italian, the stress is on the next-to-next-to-last syllable instead of the next-to-last syllable as with most Italian place names: so it’s Ó-tranto. The ‘o’ is short like the ‘o’ in ‘hot’ so it’s not ‘oh-trant-oh’. Similar place names (with the stress marked): Gallípoli, Táranto, and Monópoli. The Touring Club Italiano maps helpfully add the stresses to place names that differ from the standard pronunciation.
Santa Maria di Leuca
Santa Maria di Leuca is the southernmost tip of the heel of Italy where the Adriatic and Ionian seas meet.
According to the legend, the town takes its name from “Leucasia”, a white beautiful mermaid (in Greek “leukos” means “white”) who conquered sailors and farmers by her charming voice.
At the most southerly point there’s a lighthouse, and ext to the lighthouse is the Santuario De Finibus Terrae (“End of the Land”, 1720 – 1755), built to commemorate the passage of St. Peter here on his way to Roma.
More information
Places to stay
Transport and services
Articles in this series
- Puglia Grand Tour – Overview
- Puglia Grand Tour – 1
- Puglia Grand Tour – 2
- Puglia Grand Tour – 3
- Puglia Grand Tour – 4
- Puglia Grand Tour – 5
- Puglia Grand Tour – 6
- Puglia Grand Tour – 7
- Puglia Grand Tour – 8
- Puglia Grand Tour – 9 – onward connections
Get in touch
Please get in touch if you find any errors in the information, or if there’s anything, good or bad, that you’d want other cyclists to know.
Join the mailing list?
If you’ve found this site useful why not sign up to the mailing list for occasional updates about new routes.