Salento's Natural History Museum
Attracted for a one-day conference, I ended up most interested in this developing museum itself. It offers an interesting series of events, broadly environmental in scope but also culinary and traditional, hosted on an evolving site with different environments, all of them mixing education with fun. At first glance, the situation isn't necessarily promising. An out-of-the-way new build on the outskirts of Calimera (some 17 km from Lecce), the prospect of a thin experience looms. The entry fee isn't cheap - and it's complicated too, because you have to decide up front how many itineraries you want to include in your visit, then select a multiple-entry ticket reflecting how much you expect you'll want to see... Uffa! (as the Italians spell Ugh). So I found myself wondering whether I wasn't going to meet a common species, the Italian white elephant... However, the place turns out to be worth a full day's visit. I'll break up this article according ...