Every design for San Severo

Do you still call it Sanzëvírë when nobody from home is listening? The dialect name for San Severo says a lot about the place: a farming and trading town in the north of the Tavoliere delle Puglie, at the foot of the Gargano spur, that has kept its own way of speaking.

Growing up here means growing up with space. The comune is one of the largest in Italy by area, and beyond the last streets the land opens into olive groves, vineyards and wheat fields dotted with farmhouses, sloping gently from low hills in the west down to the plain of the Candelaro in the east. In town there is the Villa Comunale, the Colonna Infame and the Museo dell'Alto Tavoliere (Ex Monastero Francescano), set in a former Franciscan monastery.

Look at San Severo on a map and the old centre is still there at the heart of the web of roads, where the town began around a small church built by Benedictine monks. For anyone who grew up in it, every road out across the fields leads back to that centre.