Clear Blue Sky At The Grotta Della Poesia In The Puglia Region Of Southern Italy With The Adratic Sea In The Background Stock Photo

Roca Vecchia or Rocavecchia is a coastal resort in Salento and one of the marinas of Melendugno, in the province of Lecce. It faces the Adriatic Sea and is located between San Foca and Torre dell`Orso.Home to important archaeological excavations, it is a major tourist center during the summer period. Noteworthy are the 16th-century watchtower, the ruins of the castle overlooking the sea, the 17th-century sanctuary of the Madonna di Roca and the two Poesia caves from the Greek, `spring of fresh water`, better known as the Poesia caves. The latter, in particular, about 60 meters apart, are karst caves whose roofs have collapsed; sea water reaches each of them through a channel that can be traveled by swimming or a small boat. The larger of the two has a roughly elliptical plan with axes of about 30 and 18 meters and is about 30 meters from the open sea. The Small Poetry, on the other hand, has axes of about 15 and 9 meters and is separated from the open sea by about seventy meters as the crow flies. Its notable importance in the archaeological sphere is linked to the discovery in 1983, thanks to archaeologist Cosimo Pagliara, of Messapic but also Latin and Greek inscriptions on its walls, from which it was possible to establish that the cave was formerly a place of worship of the god Taotor or also Tator, Teotor, or Tootor.