Puglia means history, art, traditions and beautiful beaches

If you choose to learn Italian in Puglia you can combine the study of Italian with tours and cultural activities in this beautiful region. Our Italian language school offers a lot of cultural activities and tours to explore this interesting region.

How can we describe Apulia, a region that wherever we look she offers different sensations, new facets, rediscovered treasures, unexplored habitats, old traditions? This question accompanied us on our wanderings through this at-times solitary land. All its cities, towns, villages and hamlets left us with the conviction that it could never be possible to describe Puglia in full, as this strip of Italy with its coastline looking east over the Mediterranean is not all that meets the eye, or that you can touch and taste, trullobut is represented more in the way its people welcome you, inviting you to admire, discover and enjoy. From the Gargano to the Salento, Apulia is full of priceless treasures and architectural gems, such as its UNESCO World Heritage Sites, places so beautiful that they are considered part of humanity’s common heritage. Our Italian language school offers you a wide choice of guided tours (tour of the Greek area, tour of the South coast, tour of Lecce and the tour of Gallipoli) that will allow you to get to know the soul of Puglia.

The coast: beaches and precipices

If you choose to learn Italian in Puglia you can combine the study of Italian with a beach holiday.

Paradise is within reach in Apulia, with its crystal clear seas, golden bays, savage cliffs, and dunes covered in Mediterranean scrub. The beaches here have nicknames like “the Maldives” or “the Caribbean”.
Lying at the feet of precipitous cliffs are enchanting little beaches that change shape according to the irregular and impulsive rhythm of the waves beaten back by the cliffs. These cliffs are often lofty and inaccessible, yet they teem with caves and gorges that form a jagged coastline.
Apulia offers a varied coastline: narrow sandy shores give way to precipitous cliffs with marine caves and intimate and inviting coves.

Blue flag certification for the sea

From the Gargano to the Salento, from bays on the Ionian Sea to the seashores of Bari, many resorts have been awarded the Blue Flag certification in recognition of the beauty of their coastline, their clean water, and the vast assortment of services they offer to beachgoers.

Learn Italian in Puglia, a unique opportunity to get to know an unexplored culture: the Salento region

Our Italian language school is located in the Southern Apulia, in a region called Salento.

Salento begins at Lecce and ends on the heel of Italy . It moved to east as if a Greek God, to enjoy himself, had thrown the boot towards him. “Land of Otranto” was called the Salento, land of Normans. The town that gave the name to this land was a small Mediterranean power leaned out on the East with its monasteries as San Nicola of Casole, one of the most cultured and sophisticated places in Europe during the XIII century. There precious manuscripts were copied, there people spoke Greek and Latin, there people landed from Paris as from Bisanzio. The monastery of Casole had from the XI to the XV century in the whole South of Italy a cultural role which anticipated the Humanistic movement of northern Italy.

In the Salento region you can breathe a particular atmosphere haunted by indefinite presences. It is a land of dolmen and menhir, of prehistoric caves of extraordinary importance, archaeological sites, and places that seem like magic. It is celebrated by the most famous writers such as Virgilio (Enea landed at the Salento to found Rome) or Horace Walpole, the English writer of 1700 who wrote the novel “The Castle of Otranto”; land which is subject of historical and anthropological studies from foreign researchers of international fame. If you choose to learn Italian in Puglia you will have the possibility to immerse yourself in the extraordinary culture of this unexplored land.

The first university in the Mediterranean area

Here flourished an active center of studies that picked up the ancient Greek-Latin codes. For the first time in Europe, in the “scriptorium casolano” rose in 1160, the Students’ House, the second rose in London in 1183.
The School of Casole became the meeting-point of researchers of Eastern and Western Europe, who exchanged codes, experiences, and knowledge.

Otranto, the door to East

Otranto, a “crossroad of cultures,” is a place where the student can meet the past cultures: the Arabs, the Greeks, the Messapians, the Spanish, the Normans, the Celts, and the Swabians. Students can also find signs of primitive peoples (caves with primitive drawings, dolmen and menhir can be found all over the countryside). Land of transit, all ancient people travelling between East and West left their mark.

Lecce, the Florence of Southern Italy

The chief town of the province is Lecce, “the Florence of Southern Italy”. It is a town where losing oneself is, more than an accident on the way. It is a duty of the intellect. Lecce, home of the Baroque, is more than an architectural style, a way to relive past. Time in Lecce passes through its tortuous streets, through places that you would never recognize, because the streets change perspective continuously. Lastly, the Salento, finis terrae, is a winding land that lives through the nuances of the imagination.

You can learn more about Lecce thanks to our guided tour of Lecce.

Gallipoli

The old town centre sits on a small island connected to the mainland by a 17th century bridge. It is almost completely surrounded by defensive walls, built mainly in the 14th century.
The town is dominated by a robust fortress dating back to the 13th century and rebuilt in the 1500s.
 
 Founded, so legend tells us, by Idomeneo from ancient Crete, the town soon became part of Magna Graecia and remained so until Pyrrhus, presumably following one too many disastrous victories, was defeated by the Romans!
When the Byzantines arrived, rebuilded the town much in the form we recognise today. The island heart of Gallipoli is home to numerous impressive Baroque churches and aristocratic palazzi, testament to the town’s former wealth as a trading port. A labyrinthine weave of narrow streets all eventually lead to the broader sea-front promenade with its wonderful views.

Grecìa Salentina

Salentinian Greece, called Grecia Salentina, is a very old and interesting area in the province of Lecce on the peninsula of Salento in southern Italy inhabited by people from Greek origins: an ethnic Greek minority who traditionally spoke a Greek dialect known as Griko
It is a group of 11 towns south of Lecce whose whitewashed walls, architecture, language and music traditions are reminiscent of Greece.

You can learn more about this area thanks to our guided tour in the Grecìa Salentina.

Learn more about Apulian history, traditions and gastronomy!