Description of the attraction
Santa Maria al Bagno is a popular resort in the Italian region of Apulia, part of the Nardò commune, located on the Ionian coast. In general, Santa Maria is a fishing village nestled on the shores of the Gulf of Taranta between Gallipoli and Porto Cesareo. Its rocky and sandy beaches have long been popular with tourists. In the immediate vicinity of Santa Maria there is the Portoselvaggio nature reserve with 400 hectares of pine groves and 7 km of pristine coastline. Portoselvaggio is one of the main green oases in the whole of Puglia.
Getting to Santa Maria al Bagno is very simple: the large city of Brindisi is 45 minutes away by car, Lecce is 20 minutes away, and Bari is an hour and a half away. The town has shops, restaurants, pubs and 24-hour bars, while large supermarkets and fashionable boutiques can be found in neighboring Nardò, Galatina, Gallipoli and Lecce.
During World War II, Santa Maria al Bagno hosted a camp for Jewish refugees, and recently opened a museum dedicated to the thousands of camp residents who passed through Italy on their way to Israel. According to historians, from 1943 to 1947, about 150 thousand Jews visited the camp who aspired to the Promised Land. The museum exhibits various documents and artifacts of that era, photographs, videos, etc.
Another attraction of Santa Maria al Bagno is the Torre del Fiume di Galatena, one of the many coastal towers of Salento, built in the 16th century to protect the coast from Saracen raids. There is a fresh water spring near the tower, which the pirates knew about and because of which they often attacked these places. The tower was once a truncated pyramidal structure about 16 meters high with corner bastions. The central part of the tower probably collapsed shortly after construction. Today only four corner bastions remain from Torre del Fiume di Galatena, which gave the tower the nickname "Quattro Column" - Four Columns.
