Puglia, Italy's heel, is a veritable storehouse of natural and cultural treasures waiting to be discovered. With its fabulous climate, Apulia has the best of both worlds: some of Italy's quietest and most unspoiled beaches, a stunning coastline, and inland, landscapes that are fertile and undulating - often dotted with picturesque olive trees and pastoral herds of sheep. As you travel across Apulia, the silhouettes of ancient ruined castles and magnificent palazzi on the horizon imbue this land with an almost Arcadian feel and evoke a sense of peaceful nostalgia for former times.   There is also fun for all the family, as 20 minutes drive from the villa in Rivabella is parco splash, a new and exciting waterpark for all the family.

"The California of Italy" is the phrase that chambers of commerce and tourist development agencies use to lure tourists to Puglia, but Puglia has something California lacks: a depth of history, a sense of the chiaroscuro of tragedy and loss, of the harsh side of life that counterpoints moments of joy and sweetness. There's a special poignancy to celebration when the ache of misfortune and sorrow underlies it: It seems significant that the pizzica, a woman's triumphal dance of seduction and conquest, is almost indistinguishable from the ritualistic rapture of the tarantella, the hypnotic trance-dance induced by the remorseless sting of a spider that lurks, one writer says, "in the labyrinths of a guilty conscience" and almost always attacks women, almost always those who have been unlucky in love or marriage.

Puglia (or Apulia as it is also called), is a food and wine lover’s paradise. One reason is that the fresh produce is of such high quality. Indeed, many of the basic elements of the Italian kitchen originate from Puglia. A huge proportion of Italy’s fish is caught off the extensive Apulian coast, 70% of the country’s olive oil is produced here and the region provides 80% of Europe’s pasta. Many quality wines are produced here, 10% of the European production to be more precise with the best reds from the Peninsula Salentina.

No less than twenty castles make the Salento area itself into one huge fort, a rock-like bastion, which together with coastal towers and internally fortified farmhouses, have stood against the hundreds of invasions which through the centuries have made this region a conquered land or a land to conquer for Normans, Swabians, Angevins, Aragonese, Spanish, Venetians and Saracens. The actual lay-out of nearly all Salento’s castles dates back to the Renaissance period (15th and 16th century), even if is often the case that earlier structures have been built into various complexes, as for example in the case of the castles in Copertino, Gallipoli, Otranto, Acquarica del Capo, Presicce, Morciano di Leuca and Roca Vecchia. A mention apart for the castle in Corigliano d’Otranto, a superb synthesis of military practicality and artistic beauty  (right, 10 minutes drive from Villa Casa Blanca). It is the most decoratively rich in the region and among the most visited and admired castles in the South of Italy.