VillaAlda
Two-room Apartments with Sea View
Santa Cesarea Terme
Santa Cesàrea Terme is the ideal destination for those who need a relaxing stay to regenerate mind and body.
This location is full of enchanting and intrinsic beauty, and you can grasp its undeniable magic in so many different aspects: the seafront with a high rocky coast that leaves you breathless, the many ancient villas of art nouveau mold that enrich it walking down the streets, the numerous white staircases that connect them on different planes.
In fact the small town of Salento is divided on multiple levels; the highest point is represented by the high and jagged coast, overlooking the sea, where there are cavities in the rocks that you absolutely must visit.
The urban center is located at half height of the coast and is composed by a main road, surrounded by ancient aristocratic homes of art nouveau mold.
However the description of the landscape is not yet complete, because in addition to the rocks, the sea and the city, those who visit Santa Cesàrea Terme are free to plunge into the green, thanks to the beautiful expanses of secular olive groves that give cool shade to visitors. Moreover climbing the hill you can stroll through the woods of Aleppo pines, up to reach a nearby playground for children.
This natural path must not be necessarily undertaken using a car, the town is in fact characterized by numerous stairways that allow you to easily move.
The important thing is to stop over Belvedere (WHERE YOU ARE) from which you can admire the whole coast of South Salento up to Santa Maria di Leuca and, in the days when the sky is clearer, from the other side of the sea you can see the high albanians mountains and the Greek islands (such as Othoni) that rise as the entrance in an unknown and fairy world.
In the old town is possible to visit the Mother Church "Sacro Cuore" dating back to the fourteenth century, but rebuilt in 1924 by the Friars Minor. The cult of the Saint is celebrated every year on 11th September, when a procession of boats heads towards the cave where the Virgin lived and was martyred.
The Salento peninsula, a strategic point for those who want to reach the Mediterranean Sea from East, is characterized by a series of towers used as a protection. In Santa Cesàrea Terme there are four towers: Torre Miggiano, Torre di Santa Cesarea (or Belvedere), Torre Minervino and Torre Specchia di Guardia. The towers were built in 1500 to defend against attacks by Saracens.
The numerous villas date back to that archaic tourism previously mentioned, when, during the second half of the Nineteenth Century, the local nobles sought some locations for the holidays during the sweltering summer months. Santa Cesarea Terme was considered as the perfect location to regenerate, so they decided to build a series of wonderful villas. Today we can count a dozen in very good condition, although once they were also many more! Among these the most important is Villa Sticchi, built in 1885, an example of Moorish style (style developed by African Muslims between 1000 and 1400 well in evidence along the coast with its great dome above the spa).
In the lowest part of the village, at the height of the lower coast, there is an important spa, active since the second half of the nineteenth century, when the curative properties of the sources of sulfurous water that came from four cavities in the rock were evident, although they were already known from the fifteenth century. The waters gush at considerable temperatures and, through different techniques, they allow to treat many ailments. These cavities are typical of the coast that is rich of caves.
Santa Cesàrea Terme is near by many popular tourist localities: Castro, Otranto, Porto Badisco, Gallipoli, Torre dell'Orso, Santa Maria di Leuca, that are between 15 and 50 km away. In the hinterland there are numerous food and wine events and patronal festivals.
The sea
Santa Cesarea Terme offers excellent opportunities for seaside tourism thanks to the presence of a beautiful sea overlooking equipped beaches .
The sea offers numerous excursion possibilities that lead to the discovery of an exceptional marine landscape.
The seabed is among the most beautiful in Salento, offering a spectacle that combines sandy stretches with stretches of low cliffs and other stretches of rich marine vegetation. Diving and snorkeling enthusiasts will undoubtedly love this sea!
A clear example is the pools, located just south of the municipality of Santa Cesarea and reachable via a picturesque staircase carved into the rock. This is the case of the free descent to the sea of the "Fontanelle" , where there are wonderful natural pools that, over time, were created inside ancient quarries of càrparo, a type of calcareous tuff characteristic of Puglia.
Their waters are very beautiful, with colours ranging from turquoise to emerald and, especially in summer, they are crowded with tourists who indulge in a different kind of bathing.
Porto Miggiano
Porto Miggiano is a beautiful coastal town that is part of the municipality of Santa Cesarea Terme, characterized by the presence of a wonderful bay with a still uncontaminated charm.
What characterizes it is its small tourist port and the 16th century tower of the same name, which was built to defend the city's coastline from Saracen attacks.
The bay, located on the eastern coast of Salento, is a rocky cove, with a sandy seabed, which is almost nestled inside a small inlet overlooking the sea. It is its particular conformation that makes Porto Miggiano one of the most spectacular beaches in Puglia, together with its transparent seabed where it is possible to practice snorkeling. From here it is also possible to admire beautiful stacks and prehistoric caves such as that of Romanelli.
Porto Miggiano Bay is also known as the beach of 100 steps because of the number of steps you have to go down to get to the beach.
Sulphurous Cave
In a place dedicated to wellness like Santa Cesarea Terme, a place like the Sulfurea Cave could not be missing. The Salento center can in fact boast a complex made up of four interconnected caves , overlooking the Adriatic, each of which has specific peculiarities: the Gattulla , Fetida , Sulfurea and Solfatara caves.
The sulphurous-salty-bromine-iodine and lithium -rich waters that flow inside these caves are mainly used for baths, mud baths, inhalations, hydromassages, massages, insufflations, especially indicated for respiratory, arthritic, skin, ENT and gynecological pathologies. The spa is also equipped for motor rehabilitation and wellness programs.
The sulphurous one is very important and, in addition to being a site of interest from a curative point of view, it is also a historical place linked to legends whose origins date back a long way in time.
Currently inside this cave, which is about 60 meters long, there is a thermal spring of sulphurous water.
The Spa
In Santa Cesarea Terme there is a historic spa , whose waters have unique beneficial properties. Chlorinated, sulphurous and iodine waters flow at variable temperatures in four natural caves , connected to the sea, called: Gattulla, Fetida, Sulfurea and Solfatara.
According to a Christian legend, it was the virgin Cisaria, who took refuge in a cave to escape her father's incestuous desires, who transmitted her purity to the waters, although their scientific valorization dates back to the early twentieth century – the period in which the Gattulla spa was inaugurated.
The Santa Cesarea Spa offers therapeutic treatments , wellness treatments, aesthetic treatments – on request, natural medicine treatments and specialist outpatient services.
Among the main services that facilitate the enjoyment of the thermal benefits are: the Albergo Palazzo hotel with internal access to the spa, the Lido Caicco bathing establishment, the Sulphurous Pool with heated beneficial waters and the agreement with the National Health Service.
Zinzulusa Cave and
the other caves
The Zinzulusa Cave is one of the largest and most important on the Apulian coast and has a magnificent opening onto the sea.
Located about 3 km from the town of Santa Cesarea Terme, the Zinzulusa Cave can be visited for about 150 m, while a new branch, recently discovered, is a biologically protected area.
This cave is characterized not so much by its length, but above all by its strong visual impact and by the suggestions it manages to give even just by admiring its external mouth, which recalls in all respects a Dantean landscape, and inside by the large and scenic stalactites and stalagmites.
The name of the cave derives from a dialect term, zinzuli (rags), as the stalactites at the entrance to the cavity are similar to rags hanging from the ceiling.
Fresh and salt waters merge inside the cave, which is inhabited (in the area that cannot be visited) by a colony of bats and also by some very rare animal species.
In some parts of the Zinzulusa Cave, traces of prehistoric man have been found who, most likely, lived inside it, together with the remains of a temple dedicated to the goddess Minerva .
Open all year round, during the Christmas period a suggestive nativity scene is set up in the cave.
Finally, along the coast between Santa Cesarea and Castro there are a series of other caves that can only be reached by sea. The most important for its historical value is the Romanelli Cave , brought to light only at the beginning of the twentieth century after centuries of closure due to masses of earth that had hidden it. It is not accessible to tourists but has returned priceless treasures such as examples of Paleolithic art graffiti and tools made by the extinct human race of Neanderthals.
However, always through special boat trips, you can reach and visit some other caves, among which we remember the most important: Grotta Azzurra , suggestive for the very intense color of the water in its only marine cavity; the “Grotta delle Striare” or of the witches, because it is said that it was their home and whose rocky shape seems to draw female hands with long nails; this natural cavity, after heavy rains, also hosts a small lake. In addition, the small Rotundella and Ritunna caves and others.
