Area Marina Protetta Porto Cesareo description and photos - Italy: Ionian Coast (Topic)

Area Marina Protetta Porto Cesareo description and photos - Italy: Ionian coast. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The name in English is Area Marina Protetta Porto Cesareo.

Photo and description

The Porto Cesareo Marine Reserve is one of the most beautiful areas of the Salentine coast. It lies just 500 meters from the coast of the peninsula, and under the water you can find typical subtropical plants and animals characteristic of warm waters. In the immediate vicinity of the coast you can find corals and colorful nudibranchs. The overland part of the reserve is covered with dense thickets of Alep pine and acacia.

The coastline of Porto Cesareo is very indented and very diverse - the local landscapes are represented by limestone plains, beaches, sand dunes, bays, coves, rocky cliffs, cliffs and river islands. Traces of geological evolution can still be found in this area. Interesting, that in the waters of this particular reserve, biologists discovered the only organism on earth capable of changing its own biological cycle and avoiding the final stage of life of any terrestrial being - death.

In addition to the incredible variety of marine life that attracts scientists and divers from all over the world, Porto Cesareo has many other attractions. For example, numerous underwater caves, of which only 53 have been explored and described, or the Isola Grande island, which lies parallel to the coast, 1 km from the city of Porto Cesareo. The island is about a kilometer long and about 400 meters wide. The strait separating it from the Salento Peninsula is only 1.3 meters deep, so you can literally get to Isola Grande by water. At the bottom of one of the bays of this island in 1973, divers discovered a gold ring with an engraving made in the Phoenician language.

2 km south of the town of Torre Sant Isidoro, there is the Palude del Capitano creek with a depth of about 125 meters ... It was formed as a result of the flooding of an underground cave with water, the vaults of which collapsed in the past, and is connected with the sea through a system of complex channels.

The man-made landmark of Porto Cesareo is the Masserie - huge fortified buildings typical of Puglia. 3 km from the coast of Porto Cesareo is one of the most striking examples of rural architecture in Salento - Masseria Giudice Giorgio with a defensive complex. You can also see the Donna Menga Masseria at the Vegile - Porto Cesareo intersection.

In 1960, on the seabed opposite the coastal tower of Torre Chianca, at a depth of 5 meters, seven marble columns with a diameter of 70 to 100 cm and a height of about 9 m were discovered.The columns are partially submerged in the sandy bottom in perfect order - today you can see five of seven columns and a huge square marble block. All of them date from the 2nd century AD. and probably ended up at the bottom of the sea in a ship wreck.

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Topic: Area Marina Protetta Porto Cesareo description and photos - Italy: Ionian Coast.