Santa Maria al Bagno

Santa Maria al Bagno is a seaside village of Nardò with a small sandy beach, just over a hundred metres long, which you reach down the steps of the little square, between the rotunda and the small pier. The rest of the coast, for over six kilometres as far as the Quattro Colonne and the Reggia, in the municipality of Galatone, is low rocky shore with a few higher stretches. On the rocks of the bay there are ways down and steps for diving; elsewhere you will need water shoes.

In the bay the seabed is shallow and slopes gently towards the blue. Towards Gallipoli you come to the Quattro Colonne, the surviving bastions of the Fiume di Galatena tower, built to guard a freshwater spring, and a little further on the Fiume area with its ice-cold spring. On the seafront the Museo della Memoria e dell'Accoglienza commemorates the Jewish refugees taken in here between 1943 and 1947.

The car parks are a few steps away. Nardò is a Blue Flag municipality. The coast faces south-west: with north (tramontana), north-east (grecale), east (levante), south-east (scirocco) and north-west (maestrale) winds it is sheltered, with south (ostro), south-west (libeccio) and west (ponente) winds the sea gets rough. It is part of the Montagna Spaccata e Rupi di San Mauro Natura 2000 site.