Both Gill and I are fans of headlands and promontories but for different reasons. Gill takes a geological interest in them but also has a soft spot for lighthouses. I like their emptiness and how people have revered them for centuries. The twin promontories of Punta Meliso and Ristola form Italy's heel. The small town of Santa Maria di Leuca occupies the sandy bay in-between them. There was more than enough to keep us both entertained, maybe for a couple of days. However we only had a little over three hours as the shuttle bus from the campsite dropped us off well past noon and was scheduled to pick us up at four.
We hopped off the minibus in front of the big lighthouse that dominates the cliffs above Punta Meliso to the east of the town. The driver instructed us to be at the church in the middle of town at 4.00pm. adding that it was the only one and we could not miss it. Well, time would tell!
As ever we had a plan, look at lighthouse on Punta Melisa, then head to Punta Ristola, where according to Google maps we would find 'L'isola del panino', the most enthusiastically reviewed sandwich kiosk in the entire Mezzogiorno. The distance between the two points was 2.5km. However, because we were due to catch the bus down in the town centre that reduced our walk somewhat. Four and a bit kilometres in three hours seemed plenty of time to sightsee and have a lunchtime snack. First though, I needed to find Gill, who seemed to have vanished in the time it took me to get the enormous lighthouse in frame.
I wandered about for bit, took a picture of the big convent church that dominates headland and discovered two legends about the place, the first from a Google 'local guide's' review, the second from a notice board next to the basilica.
Legend no. 1:
The inevitable legend tells that Meliso was a shepherd who, in order not to betray his beloved, did not give in to the song of a Siren. Then Minerva, who saw the scene, moved by the great love between the two lovers, transformed them into two rocky spurs, namely Punta Meliso and Punta Ristola that close the southern "heel" of Italy.
Legend number two:
A Greek temple dedicated to Athena, or Minerva as the Romans called her, was built on the highest point of Punta Meliso. When St Peter arrived here, stepping for the first time onto Italian soil on his journey to Rome, the temple immediately collapsed and was miraculously replaced by a church.
The present church is not the miraculous one, it was built in 1700.
Though St Peter's magical one has to be a fairy story there has been a church on the spot for a very long time, the original one was dedicated in 345 CE, making it one of the earliest churches in Western Europe, merely a dozen or so years after St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.
After ten minutes or so I found Gill at a viewpoint overlooking the rocky end of the headland.
Turning to our right, spread below us we had a bird's eye view of Santa Maria di Leuca, including the church where we were meant to catch the shuttle bus later. Beyond the town you could see the low outline of Punta Ristola, the location of the legendary sandwich place.
It was the prospect from Punta Ristola that Virgil wrote about over two thousand years ago:
“From the eastern sea,
Curving in an arc,
The thick foaming waves break
Against their opposing rocky masses.
Hidden from sight,
Sheltered behind its double seawalls,
Lies the internal port,
From where the hilly land rises
Towards the far-off temple.”
It felt slightly uncanny that the view seemed largely unchanged, apart from the fact the temple had become a church by miraculous means or otherwise. Oddly though, Virgil omitted to mention the sandwiches.
The route down to the town is by a series of vertiginous, slippy and uneven steps. We took them very slowly, one at a time. For someone who suffers from vertigo and has an impending appointment soon after we get back with an orthopedic surgeon Gill managed magnificently.
It's only when you reach the bottom that you can see the batshit crazy monument you have just descended in its entirety.
It was built on the orders of Mussolini in the 1920s to celebrate the completion of an aqueduct running across Puglia, a project that took over fifty years. Sadly the central cascade carries so much water that it only can operate a couple of days each year. Am I imagining that I saw an episode of Gino d'Campo's series about the cuisine of Italy's Adriatic coast where the waterfall was actually working?
It could have felt like a long slog around the bay to get from the bottom of the cascade to the epic sandwich place at Punta Ristola, especially as the final few hundred metres involve a stiff climb. However, Santa Maria di Leuca turned out to be far more intriguing than it looked from Punta Meliso. Most of the sea front is lined with stylish villas dating from the late nineteenth century up until the thirties.
We have seen similar developments in Spain, in Benicassim for instance. There most of the old villas have been re-purposed as boutique hotels or split into posh apartments. Here many seemed still to be privately owned. By whom, we wondered?
Some were quite modest in scale...
Others more grandiose...
One or two, set back a few streets from the esplanade were palatial.
Finally we reached the road leading down to Punta Ristola, led confidently by Google map's posh voiced assistant. For reasons that I cannot fully understand I am convinced she is called Veronica. As we neared 'L'isola del panino's red spot on the map Veronica announced confidently, " You have arrived."
There was no sandwich place, just an empty layby. We returned to the reviews, the latest written less than a fortnight ago praising the place's cocktails as well as its food and like many of the posts gushing with admiration about the sunset views. It was true, the spot did face directly west, but the only interesting thing we could see was a sculpted head carved in a style vaguely reminiscent of those on Easter Island.
Looking again at the photos of L'isola del panino online it could well be a food truck rather than a kiosk - maybe they shut up shop at the end of September, perhaps they only arrive in the evening catering exclusively for sunset aficionados with the munchies... We will never know.
What we did know was we were tired, hungry and seriously in want of a delicious lunch. Gill sat down on a bench and Whatsapped Sarah, Hackney Wick to the rescue - where had she eaten when she came here?
Meanwhile I wandered down the road determined to get a good view of Punta Ristola. There were too many bushes, but I did happen to find a small statue of Padre Pio with lots of offerings at his feet.
If you happen to be rationally minded and sincerely hope that the future will be less blighted by magical thinking and superstition a quick read of the Wikipedia article about Padre Pio should be enough to convince you that our age is no less benighted than any other.
While I was ruminating gloomily about the future Gill solved our immediate lunch crisis. We headed for the food court where Sarah and Rob ate when they were here in 2018. The place was still serving even though we arrived mid-afternoon. Its puccia may not have reached the heady gastronomical heights of the mythical food truck on the hill, but they were pretty good.
The day had been somewhat frenetic, we compensated by taking our time over our late lunch.
With half an hour to kill before the bus arrived to picked us up we found a local gelateria and indulged in our quest to find better ones than Bologna's Cremeria San Stefano. These weren't. They were still excellent though. Footsore but well fed we found the church and almost immediately the minibus found us.
The heel of Italy, not merely a geographical spot; like so much here things are almost always more profound, nuanced or complex than they first appear, probably because whatever you care to think about or do the chances are Italians have been doing it and thinking about it far longer than the rest of us.
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