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GARGANO
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Called "the spur of Italy" owing to its particular position on the Italian peninsula, the Gargano massif, the most easterly outpost of Puglia, covers a surface area of over 2,000 sq. km., 65 km. long, it stretches towards the Adriatic and the Balkans. The huge limestone promontory, with its steep flanks rising in the area of the Province of Foggia, interrupting the flat profile of the Tavoliere plain, is characterised by widespread karstic phenomena that greatly affects the lie of the land and has also produced underground caverns and chasms, many of them unexplored to this day. On the rugged slopes - that either precipitate to the sea or take the form of rocky spurs covered with vegetation or drop gently down to the finest sand - grows a lush Mediterranean maquis, where the Jerusalem pine and broom stand out, dense olive plantations cover the southern slopes, whereas citrus fruit and vines thrive along the northern coastal strip. The inland area is densely forested - the most notable area is the Umbra forest, typified by secular beech trees - and until recently completely cut off for lack of roads, despite the enormous increase in visitors, the Gargano still maintains its severe grandness and arcane beauty that inspired the earliest pilgrims to call it the "Holy Mountain". Since 1991 the Gargano has been a National Park and apart from hosting a large variety of animal and plant species, including some rarities, it maintains traditions and legends unchanged by the passing of time. To the extraordinary beauty of the mountainous massif can be added a valuable historical and artistic heritage testifying to the peoples and civilisation it has embraced.
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