On Route 16, 61 km North West of Brindisi. The coastline runs on, stony and bleak under a pitiless summer sun, but if you detour to Fasano’s selva, a forested hill with dwarf oaks and assorted Mediterranean flora, you may take off the dark glasses. Summer cottages, restaurants, fashion shows and motor-cycle races are destroying this hill’s rustic charms. At one time visitors came only to look at its stalactite caves and at the pre-Roman city of Gnathia (Egnatia to the Romans) 6 km towards the shore. There the excavations are well laid-out and a modern museum, called Antiquarium, displays precious finds, Two kilometres from Fasano is a safari-zoo where exotic animals roam semi-wild in woodlands of olive, almond and florid shrubbery – a novelty for the south of Italy.