Lakes of Lesina and Varano

The  lakes of Lesina and Varano - On the way to Gargano, coming from the Tavoliere (tableland) of Apulia, the Lake of Varano is to reach. It is fed by underground sources and is the biggest {60,5 km2) of the two coast lakes on the Adriatic Sea. The place is very nice: a narrow iayer of land, covered with sand-dunes and little woods, separates the lake from the sea. It creeps into its waters with two channels, Varano estuary and Capoiale estuary. Cagnano Varano overlooks this place. It can be the ancient italic town Uria. Carpino is the town of olive-oil and of the folk song of Gargano with its ten-years "Carpino folk festival" an important music show, that takes place in the first ten days of August. Along an uphill winding road, with a fine view over the lake, Ischitella is to reach. It is a medieval small town, hometown of the well-known historian and jurist Pietro Giannone. The lake of Lesina is a little deep backwater, it formed because of the blocking of the sea inlet. It is well-known for eels and for a great number of migratory fauna, which lives among the cane-brake. In the VII cent, in the town Lesina, whose population was often decimated by malaria, the population of Lucera, on the run from the Byzantines, took shelter. In the XI-XVI cent, it was also town-county and bishop's seat. The Main Church (nineteenth-century reconstruction of a preceding Romanesque church), the Abbey of Santa Maria di Ripalta (pilgrimage destination 9 km far from the town) and the Visitors centre of the National Park of Gargano are to visit.