Specchia

The name comes from the specchie, conical stone mounds the Messapians used as lookouts. The town stands on a rise at the foot of the Serra Magnone, inland in lower Salento between the Ionian and Adriatic seas, among olive groves terraced with dry-stone walls and dotted with pajare. Being far from the coast, it took in people fleeing the Turks after Otranto fell in 1480.

Highlights

• Palazzo Risolo, a 16th-century palace on the site of the medieval castle
• The Church of Santa Eufemia, dating from the 9th or 10th century
• Church and convent of the Francescani Neri, from the early 16th century
• The feast of San Nicola on 7 and 8 May, and a living nativity
• Cardigliano, a farming village built in 1930 to process tobacco

Summary based on Wikipedia and Wikivoyage (CC BY-SA), written with AI assistance.