THE FINEST HOURS
Looking back, I’m still not entirely sure when it happened. Was it as we cut the boat’s motor and drifted into a grotto on water of such vivid hue and clarity that we might have been adrift on a sea of liquid emerald? Was it as we chanced upon the beautiful Renaissance heart of an unprepossessing village we’d only driven through as an afterthought? Or was it when we stopped on a quiet coastal road in the middle of nowhere and were led down to a rocky shelf a meter above the Mediterranean, where a pop-up lounge and cocktails were waiting for us to enjoy the sunset in splendid isolation?
I can’t be certain. The only thing I know for sure is that at some point during my three days in Salento, I realized that I didn’t want to go home.
The less visited part of Puglia, right at the tip of Italy’s heel, Salento is a rolling—low, circular stone granaries that wouldn’t look out of place in the Stone Age—and sleepy villages whose most prominent feature is the church tower.
