Cisternino

Cisternino, in addition to being included in the list of the most beautiful villages in Italy, is a Slow Food city due to the maintenance of its gastronomic traditions and the protection of local food and production, such as meat, which can be bought in one of the many butcheries spread  in the historic center.

Especially in the summer, the meat bought is cooked at the stove, a wood-fired oven typical of central and southern Puglia and is consumed by sitting in specially arranged tables outdoors. Characteristics are the bowls, pork cuttings that can be found in different variations and called “bombette” : from those with the pancetta in taut, up to the spicy ones, passing through the stuffed ones that usually contain salami or cheese seasoned with salt and pepper.

Throughout the year in Cisternino and surroundings there are many typical festivals among which those of the grape, the rabbit and the famous feast of the orecchiette di Caranna (fraction of Cisternino). In addition, Cisternino also hosts the “Festival delle Pietre che cantano“. and the Valle d’Itria Festival of Musical Bands which every year attract thousands of tourists. Cisternino also has the largest forest in the province of Brindisi, about 200 hectares of Mediterranean scrub and pine forest also rich in trails and for trekking , hiking and mountain biking.

There are many places to visit in the historic center which, once crossed, leads to the belvedere of public gardens, where the view opens onto the Valle D’Itria with its countryside full of vineyards, olive groves, fruit trees, farms – the most ancient of which date back to the XV-XVI centuries – and of trulli, the singular dry constructions with the dome shaped like a cone covered with stone slabs.And finally Cisternino is also spirituality and energy: in its countryside, immersed in he  nature, there is the AShram Bhole Baba.