Tomba di Rotari

Promontorio del Gargano


A short flight of stairs opposite the Santuario di San Michele leads to 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 in a 19th-century earthquake. The Romanesque portal of the adjacent 11th-century Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore has some fine bas-reliefs.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Promontorio del Gargano attractions

1. Santuario di San Michele

0.04 MILES

Over the centuries this sanctuary has expanded to incorporate a large complex of religious buildings that overlay its original shrine. The double-arched…

2. Castle

0.13 MILES

At the highest point of Monte Sant'Angelo is this rugged fastness, first built by Orso I, who later became Doge of Venice, in the 9th century. One 10th…

3. Parco Nazionale del Gargano

6.25 MILES

One of Italy's largest national parks, a place of sweeping coast and deep, ancient forests, sits on the spur of southern Italy in Puglia, jutting out into…

4. Museum & Nature Centre

7.82 MILES

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…

5. Cathedral

16.79 MILES

Built by the Normans on the ruins of a Vesta temple, this 11th-century 'co-cathedral' (so called because its bishopric is shared with another) is in…

6. Chianca Amara

16.81 MILES

Vieste's most gruesome sight is this worn and polished stone where thousands were beheaded when Turks sacked Vieste in the 16th century.

7. La Salata

16.88 MILES

This palaeo-Christian graveyard dating from the 4th to 6th centuries AD is 9km out of town. Inside the cave, tier upon tier of narrow tombs are cut into…

8. Museo Malacologico

16.91 MILES

This esoteric shell museum has four rooms of fossils and molluscs, some enormous and all beautifully patterned and coloured. Note the seasonal opening…