Italy - Puglia - Gallipoli

PUGLIA
Gallipoli (Le) Italy.

Sent by Giovanni, a postcrosser from Italy.

Gallipoli (Greek: Kallipolis (Καλλίπολις), meaning "Beautiful City") is a town and comune of 21,200 inhabitants in the province of Lecce, in Apulia, southern Italy.

It is located by the Ionian Sea, on the west coast of the Salentina Peninsula. The town of Gallipoli is divided in two parts, the modern and the old city. The new town includes all the newest buildings including a skyscraper. The old town, instead, is located on a limestone island, linked to the mainland by a bridge built in the 16th century.

According to a legend, the city was founded in ancient times by Idomeneus of Crete. Pliny the Elder attributes the foundation to the Senones Gauls, while more likely is that it was a Messapic settlement. Historically, what is known is that Gallipoli was a city of the Greater Greece, ruling over a large territory including today's Porto Cesarea. In 265 it sided with Pyrrhus and Taranto against ancient Rome, suffering a defeat which relegated it as a Roman colony (later a municipium). (read further)