Grotte marine della costa di Vieste

South of Vieste the Gargano sinks into the Adriatic in walls of white limestone, and where the sea has bitten deepest it has opened some twenty caverns that can be entered only from the water. Seen from a boat, they form the most acclaimed seascape of the destination.

Why it matters

describes the stretch of coast from Vieste toward Mattinata as one of the most evocative landscapes of the region: high white cliffs plunging to the sea, pines, broom and cistus overhanging blue water, and between them small coves and beaches of very white pebbles reachable only by sea. The caves themselves, the portal explains, are broad cavities into which the sea crept as waves opened fissures, splits and galleries in the limestone over millennia — the same karst erosion that formed the arch of San Felice and isolated the Pizzomunno. Modern discovery is precisely dated: in 1954 two fishermen, the Trimigno brothers, brought the grottoes to public knowledge, and boat excursions have run ever since, to the point where the grottoes tour is now the classic marine experience of the Gargano.

What to notice

The old fishermen gave the caves names that are descriptions, and the portal lists them. The Grotta campana grande is shaped like a bell and about seventy metres tall, its walls covered in soft moss; the Grotta dei contrabbandieri has a double exit that once let smugglers slip away; swallows nest in the Grotta delle rondini; the Grotta sfondata resembles a ruined castle whose upper chamber has fallen in, Aleppo pines reflected in its emerald water. The Grotta due occhi shows two small round openings carved by the waves; in the Grotta smeralda sea and light paint the walls; and the Grotta dei pomodori owes its name to small red sea anemones — Actinia equina, the sea tomatoes — dotting the wet rock, a detail the Gargano National Park's species sheet confirms, along with the warning that they sting slightly and should not be touched. The portal adds the folklore: these, like the Pizzomunno rock, are said to be shelters of the sirens.

Context and history

Until the 1950s the grottoes were the secret of fishermen; the Trimigno brothers' explorations of 1954 opened them to visitors, and within a decade the coast was changing. In 1963 construction began at Pugnochiuso — commissioned by the engineer Enrico Mattei — of the most famous holiday centre in Vieste, and the portal credits this with shifting the local economy from farming and herding to tourism. The boat tour that developed follows the whole cliff coast: out past the bay and arch of San Felice, along baia di Campi, past the faraglioni of baia delle Zagare, and on to the beaches of Porto Greco, Vignanotica and Pugnochiuso. The caves have no built infrastructure — no walkways, no lighting — and that lack is their protection; they are entered by swimming and by small craft exactly as nature left them.