Cave of Poetry — Attraction in Melendugno

Waste of time, bad experience! They won't let you go in the water via stairs, the only way is to jump in. There is NO railing anywhere and it's extremely dangerous and someone could easily fall in and slip and get permanent damage, or worse. There are no attendants facilitating who is jumping in and everywhere is jagged. If you're looking for a fun swim, this is not the place. You're basically guaranteed to get blisters or scratches or worse. The person watching is one guy yelling at people NOT to take the stairs down and forbids anyone that can't jump in due to other reasons. There is basically no shade either and everyone's stuff is scattered everywhere with nowhere to leave it. Forget the 3 euros you have to pay to get into this awful place and buy yourself gelato or something useful rather than this headache and waste of time. Go swim in a nice Maseria or beach club that has direct access to the Adriatic sea. On top of it, there is no paved or designated sidewalk to get to the entrance from the parking area. You have to walk on the side of the road and hope you don't get hit by a car. Even though I veered as far away from the road as possible, multiple cars almost hit us by the careless and psychotic drivers in this region. Don't...

DON’T VISIT, IT’S A TOURIST TRAP!

We came here so excited to swim in the cave like we had heard about. But now that it’s an archeological site, you have to pay 2€ to enter, you are not allowed to swim anywhere, and the small cave you can’t even see because there’s just a fence around it. And the views you can get anywhere else along the coast anyways.

We were so excited to visit but ended up being super disappointed. We had also paid for the parking for around 4 hours which cost 8€ just to stay only 30mins because we couldn’t swim.

Instead, I would suggest going to Faraglionini di Sant’Andrea! When we went the sun was already setting so it was only shadow but during the day I can imagine that it’s cool. We ended going to a beach nearby (10mins by car) where we paid 40€ for two sunbeds with an umbrella for the day and had a much nicer time than at this cave.

I know it’s just 2€ but honestly save your money (and time!) and go somewhere...

Roca (also known as Rocavecchia or Roca Vecchia) is an archaeological site located on the Adriatic or Grotta della Poesia is in the coast of Puglia in Southern Italy, a few kilometres from the modern town of Melendugno and close to the city of Lecce. The site, which has been explored since the end of the 1980s by a team of the University of Salento, has produced some of the best-preserved monumental architecture of the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) in Southern Italy, along with the largest set of Mycenaean pottery ever recovered west of mainland Greece.

The occupation of the site continued also in the Iron Age and Classical times, when a large natural cavity known as Poesia Cave was used for cult practices involving the writing of thousands of dedications to a local deity in three languages: Greek, Messapic and Latin.

The site was re-occupied in late medieval times, when a new town was founded by Walter VI, Count of Brienne....