Leuca is a little town 83 km (52 miles) from Lecce and is the most southerly located town of Salento peninsula. At the ends of the earth, “finibus terrae”, a definition handed down by the Latins, to indicate a territory that signs the end of the boot and, looking out over the Mediterranean, looks beyond the Italian borders as if to seek a first approach with neighboring peoples. And precisely the particular geographical position of Santa Maria di Leuca represented, over the centuries, an opportunity for meeting, aggregation, mixture between peoples and cultures of the Mediterranean basin: in Leuca we ca find signs of the passage of Cretans, Phoenicians, Greeks who found in this place the right port for maritime traffic, the meeting point between the commercial lines that united East and West.

Hence also derives a legend, according to which the name of the place derives from a beautiful mermaid, called “Leucasia”, which bewitched the sailors with sweet melodies.

Now it is a fantastic place for summer holidays, with tourist facilities, worldliness, dance, sea, events, beaches, sun and festivals, but to visit Leuca also means and above all history, means retracing a centuries-old path in which each era and population has left tangible traces of its passage, it means to admire architectural beauties, unique and wild landscapes, it means to immerse oneself in particular and involving atmospheres, inebriating with typical perfumes, of characteristic sounds, of unique flavors. Leuca is all of this.