Torre San Giovanni

At the end of Lungomare Galileo Galilei stands the imposing Torre San Giovanni-la Pedata, built in the sixteenth century for defensive reasons, today a sea-biology station and also a stopping place for cycling tourism. We can get inside it by a door opened later, while the original entrance on the seaside is now walled up. It was restored in 1974 and today it marks the starting point of the sandy coastline to the south of Gallipoli. Around the 60s the first trendy beach appeared here, with cabins/changing rooms and apartments on the sea that marked the end of the characteristic “cambarini”, wooden structures sometimes equipped with curtains to protect women’s modesty, which at the same time increased a pruriginous curiosity that is now difficult to understand for us who live in the twenty-first century.

Bibliographical studies: G.Albahari, L.Mba Pi Tricarico, “Cambarini, Carasse and Maluni” Alezio 2010

Torre San Giovanni