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Home > Itineraries > THE SPLENDOUR OF THE SEA AND ANCIENT VINEYARDS WITH LIZZANO PDO WINE
The area where PDO Lizzano is produced is a perfect combination of history, art and sea, which also influences the taste and flavour of the wine mainly based on Negroamaro grown in the territory of the municipality from which the PDO takes its name and the neighboring one of Faggiano up to the area around Taranto.
On the coast of Lizzano stands Torre Zozzoli also known as Torre Sgarrata, a term that means collapsed. From the sea, crystalline as only the Ionian Sea can be thanks to its low salinity level, you can reach the town where the Castle or Marquis Palace stands out, built on the remains of an ancient Norman fortress. All around there are imposing buildings such as Majorano Palace and the Alessandro Manzoni primary school Palace, while in the countryside among the PDO Lizzano vineyards there are many farms and then underground oil mills and millstones, and trulli, typical Apulian dry stone houses with a conical roof, locally called pagghiare.
Not far away is Faggiano, a village of medieval origin founded by the Basilian monks and then, after the death of the national hero Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg, was populated by Albanians, so much so that in the main religious building, the Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral, the Greek rite was preserved until the 18th century.
Once in Taranto, of which two administrative islands are part of the PDO Lizzano wine, the visit is divided between the oldest part of the island, with its twisted streets and tall, narrow buildings, and the modern part that extends beyond the high palm trees on the Lungomare Vittorio Emanuele II.
The island is connected to the mainland by two bridges, Porta Napoli and Girevole, the famous movable bridge. In the heart of the old town stands San Cataldo Cathedral with its jewel: the Cappellone dedicated to the patron saint of the city with statues, frescoes and marble in profusion.
Then, the expanses of water of the Mar Piccolo, where mussels are cultivated, famous for the flavour they acquire thanks to the presence of citri, underground freshwater springs, and the Mar Grande, guarded by the Cheradi, San Pietro and San Paolo islands.
On the shores of the Mar Piccolo are the places where Saint Peter passed through and where the Capuchins chose to settle, such as the Convent of the Battendieri. On the seabed, murici and pinna nobilis mussels were once used to make purple pigment and byssus, which was used to weave fine fabrics: some of the finds are kept in the Mudi, the Diocesan Museum of Taranto.
On the wide Gulf of Taranto you can sail aboard the catamarans of the Ionian Dolphin Conservation, a scientific research association that has been studying cetaceans since 2009, observing dolphins in their environment with tourist excursions in which they share this experience.
Taranto, which was the capital of Magna Graecia, preserves the vases and the famous Ori, treasures, kept in the MarTa, the National Archaeological Museum, and the Doric columns of the temple dedicated to Poseidon in Castello Square, where Sant’Angelo Castle stands, now seat of the Navy open for guided tours. In the contemporary area of the city, the Co-cathedral dedicated to the Great Mother of God, built in 1970 to a design by Giò Ponti is noteworthy.
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