Overview
The picturesque scenery of land and water in itself already beckons you to visit this village of ancient foundation, which overlooks Lake Varano. Its historic centre is developed around the Baronial Palace, built on the remains of a Norman fortress. Venturing into the countryside north towards the lake, one reaches the grotto of St Michael Archangel, a natural cavity inhabited since the Palaeolithic period and consecrated to the archangel Michael, a pilgrimage destination and celebrated by a festival on 8 May. Popular devotion has it that the water gushing from the shrine has miraculous powers to cure eye diseases. A few kilometres from the lagoon, in the Bagno part of the district, traces of a rupestrian village of which remains from the 5th century BC have been found. Also worth seeing are the beech and colossal turkey oaks that rise in the Bosco Quarto south of Cagnano Varano, as well as in the Bosco di Ischitella e Carpino, a state nature reserve, where, thanks to the microclimate, unusually majestic trees grow for such a low altitude.
