Grottaglie

Grottaglie is located in the Salento peninsula, a whole rock of limestone dividing Adriatic sea from Ionian sea. The countryside around the city is scattered with vast and deep ravines that open the ground into the heart of the limestone-rock. The landscape is characterized by the presence of such ancient and enthralling rupestrian ravine encircling the built-up area.
The name Grottaglie derives from the Latin Cryptae Aliae, meaning “many ravines”, which has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic Age. The ancestral part of Grottaglie was one of the citadels in the area, referred to in Medieval documents as Casale Cryptalerum, founded during the Dark Ages by the inhabitants of the caves who sheltered there due to Saracen invasions. After the Italian unification Grottaglie had the first urban expansion outside its Medieval walls.