Sights in Promontorio Del Gargano
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Pizzomunno
Pizzomunno, the unmistakable white rocky tower jutting out of the sea as you approach Vieste from the south, is a natural landmark with a tale to tell. If legend is to be believed, underneath that hard rocky exterior lies the heart of a romantic.
Pizzomunno, so the story goes, was a humble fisherman in love with the beautiful Cristalda. Jealous sirens, unable to tempt him with their wily charms, dragged Cristalda to the bottom of the sea and turned the heartbroken Pizzomunno into a rock. But the sirens weren't completely wicked. Every 100 years the rock breaks free and the lovers are reunited for one wild night.
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Museo di Arti e Tradizioni
The serpentine alleys and jumbled houses of the medieval quarter, the Rione Junno, are perfect for a little aimless wandering. The cappelletti (chimney stacks) on top of the neat whitewashed houses come in interesting designs and shapes. Models of the cappelletti can be found in the Museo di Arti e Tradizioni, also known as the Museo Tancredi after its founder Giovanni Tancredi.
Located in the former monastery of San Francesco, the museum displays agricultural equipment, handicrafts and artefacts and depictions of daily life in the Gargano, including plenty of photographs of pilgrims.
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Tomba di Rotari
Descend the short flight of steps opposite Santuario di San Michele to the Tomba di Rotari – not a tomb, but a 12th-century baptistry with a deep sunken basin for total immersion. You enter the baptistry through the facade of the Chiesa di San Pietro, with its intricate rose window squirming with serpents – all that remains of the church, destroyed by a 19th-century earthquake. The Romanesque portal of the adjacent 11th-century Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore has some fine bas-reliefs.
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Abbazia di Santa Maria di Pulsano
The isolated Abbazia di Santa Maria di Pulsano, 9km southwest of town, sits on the edge of the vast Pulsano gorge overlooking the bay of Manfredonia. Originally built at the end of the 6th century, it was destroyed in 952 by the Saracens and rebuilt by the Benedictines in 1129. Well-preserved 12th-century Apulian art can be seen in the cave chapel. Look for the hermit cells and caves in the cliff face.
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La Salata
At 9km north of town, off the SP52 towards the Hotel Gabbiano Beach, is a palaeochristian graveyard dating from the 4th to the 6th centuries AD, La Salata. The cave burial chambers are found in marshland close to the sea, in an area dense with typical Mediterranean maquis. Inside the caves tier upon tier of narrow tombs are cut into the rock wall; others form shallow niches in the cave floor.
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Santuario di San Michele
Look out for 17th-century pilgrims’ graffiti as you descend the steps to the Santuario di San Michele. St Michael is said to have left a footprint in stone inside the grotto, so it became customary for pilgrims to carve outlines of their feet and hands.
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Southern Beaches
There's plenty of sun and sand for beach worshippers. The best beaches, such as Baia di San Felice and Baia di Campi, are south of Vieste. The beaches are lined with lidos where you can hire umbrellas, sun-beds, canoes and pedalos.
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Museum and Nature Centre
There is a small centro visitatori (visitors centre) in the middle of Foresta Umbra that houses a museum and nature centre with fossils, photographs and stuffed animals and birds.
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Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore
The Romanesque portal of the adjacent 11th-century Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore has some fine bas-reliefs. Inside are some well-preserved frescoes including a Byzantine fresco of the archangel.
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Cathedral
Built by the Normans on the ruins of a Vesta temple, the cathedral is in Puglian-Romanesque style with a fanciful tower that resembles a cardinal’s hat. It was rebuilt in 1800.
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Norman Castle
The Norman castle commands the highest point overlooking the medieval town and the valleys and villages beyond. The impressive Torre dei Giganti (the Giants' Tower) dates to AD 837-38.
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Museo Malacologico
The Museo Malacologico has three rooms of fossils and molluscs (shells), some enormous and all beautifully patterned and coloured. Prices start at a reasonable €3.
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Chianca Amara
The most gruesome of the handful of sights in Vieste is the Chianca Amara, where thousands were beheaded when Turks sacked Vieste in the 16th century.
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Castle
At the town's highest point is the castle built by Frederick II. It's now occupied by the military and closed to the public.
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Spiaggia del Castello
If you don't have your own transport, Spiaggia del Castello, of Pizzomunno fame, is an easily accessible beach.
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Parco Nazionale del Gargano
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Castle
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