Every design for Martina Franca

Martina Franca is known for its Baroque: an old town of narrow, winding streets enclosed by stone walls and entered through ornate gates such as Porta San Pietro and the Porta di Santo Stefano o Arco di Sant'Antonio. It sits on the southern hills of the Murge, in the Itria Valley, close to where the provinces of Taranto and Brindisi meet the metropolitan city of Bari.

From the Belvedere Valle d'Itria the land falls away into small fertile valleys planted with white-grape vines and olive trees, the source of the Martina Franca DOC wine and of the oil pressed in the area's mills. Sheep and goats graze the slopes, and the town still breeds Murgese horses and its own Martina Franca donkey. Below ground lie caves such as the grotta Monte Fellone, where people lived from the Neolithic onwards. Back in town, Piazza Roma, the largest square in the old centre, faces the Palazzo Ducale, and every summer the Festival della Valle d'Itria brings rarely heard operas to town.

Whether you grew up beneath those gates or came for the capocollo and stayed, this is a map of Baroque stone and green valley you will recognise anywhere.