Ostuni Geography

Ostuni stands where the Murgia plateau makes its final drop to the Adriatic, and the town is placed exactly on the edge of that step.

The last hill

The old town occupies one of three low hills at around 220 metres. Behind it the land rises gently into the karst uplands of the Valle d'Itria; in front it falls away in a series of terraces to a coastal plain eight kilometres wide. The position gives the town a view over the whole plain to the sea, and gave it, historically, the ability to see anyone coming.

The olive plain

That plain is the Piana degli Ulivi Secolari, an almost continuous grove of monumental olive trees running for tens of kilometres along the coast. Many are centuries old and some are credibly reckoned in thousands of years; their trunks are hollowed, split and braided into shapes that look more geological than botanical. The grove is protected, and it is one of the densest concentrations of ancient olives anywhere in the Mediterranean.

Xylella

Since 2013 the bacterium Xylella fastidiosa has spread north through Salento and into this area, killing trees that cannot be replaced in any human timescale. The damage is visible from the road and is the single biggest change to the landscape in living memory.

Where the lime came from

The whiteness has a local source. The same limestone that the town is built of was quarried and burnt in kilns on the edge of the settlement to make lime, so the coating and the walls beneath it come from the same rock. That is why limewashing was cheap enough to do to everything, and to keep doing.

The coast

Low rock alternating with sand, and at Torre Guaceto a protected marine and land reserve of dune, wetland and clear shallow water — the least built-up stretch of coast for a long way in either direction.