An Autumn Walk in Sant'Antuono Wood

 

Going for a walk in the wood in autumn, looking for the most beautiful foliage with the warmest and the most vivid colours that the nature chooses accurately from its palette, is an unmissable activity to do during this season. It may not be easy to find leaves turning yellow, red and orange in Apulia, but woods can offer other sights in this warm region as we can discover venturing in  Sant’Antuono wood.

When you think about typical autumn landscapes, Apulia is not exactly the first place that comes in to your mind, least of all Murgia tarantina. It’s not here that the foliage gives the best of itself and, let’s say it, temperatures are not exactly those that we would expect in autumn. Still, here you can find some natural heavens to dive into the atmosphere of this transitional period. Don’t you believe it? Keep reading and then tell me if I’m wrong.

Leggi in italiano

Between the towns Mottola and Martina Franca, after having faced bends and narrow streets surrounded by green, we see a gate and a little area where we can park our car. Beyond the gate, a long street penetrates the wood. Durmast oaks on both sides frame it. We are in Sant’Antuono wood.

A walk in Sant’Antuono Wood

We take the main path, a paved one, wide and sunny. The wood becomes gradually thicker, almost as if it wanted to scare us, newly arrived visitors. Few steps and on the left, right in the middle of a lawn we see a “pila”. It’s a sign of the past agrarian civilization in this wood. It’s a cistern, a stone construction for water collection with a long canal from where animals could drink and rest. Let’s continue our walk and really start feeling the atmosphere of the autumn wood.

Bracing air; portions of blue sky peep among leaves and patches of bright sunlight here and there warm our exposed skin and make the fresh musk on the rocks shine with emerald green. We join the kind sounds of the nature in its autumn dress: a leaf falls down and gracefully reaches the ground; some birds chat discreetly; a breeze ruffles the crown of the trees; the soil creaks under our feet. A scent of musky humidity has driven away the smell of the road and the town and memories of cellars, where must gets ready to become wine, emerge.

We look up: the durmast oak leaves are green. But sometimes a branch stands out with its bronzy-orange leaves and takes the scene as a main character. We look down and see the soil covered in a thin layer of leaves: they’re brown, small, big, bright or still with some points of faded green in a corner. 

Here and there little groups of cyclamens colour this dark background lilac: they mitigate the slight melancholy that autumn brings with it and give it a touch of cheerful freshness. Among the bushes in the undergrowth, a red glow catches our attention: some butcher’s-broom barries shine like gems illuminated by a ray of sunshine, their personal spotlight.

It’s really easy to let your fantasy travel and imagine that that arch between two trees, created casually by branches and bushes, could have been built to mark the passage between the fairy world and ours and that little tufts of fresh flowers and grass are there to suggest the way, like Tom Thumb’s crumbs.

We continue, we walk slowly, deep breathing the scent of damp earth. Something changes: pine needles and pinecones hanging on the branches of durmast oaks, as alternative Christmas decorations made a bit too early. It doesn’t add up. I didn’t remember that in oak forests there are pine trees too. But then I think: we are walking downhill, so the temperature is a bit higher. The nice soft carpet of fresh musk on which we were walking before has turned in a creaking multitude of dry pine needles and the air smells of Mediterranean scrub.

Other paths branches off from the street we are following: they go downhill, toward the Gravina di Corneto, or uphill, in the direction of the WWF oasis of Monte Sant’Elia, other places, at different altitudes, where surely the wood offers different sceneries. But today we can’t venture and discover them. Unfortunately, time passes too fast and, sooner or later, we still need to come back home. Eventually, we sit on a bench, together with the fallen leaves and thank the wood for its hospitality and beauty.

A changing wood: different altitudes, different sceneries

The beauty of this place is in its variety: during your walk, you go from more humid areas, where you can find easily musk and ivy that hug the trunks of oaks, to drier areas, the realm of Aleppo pines and their heady scent.

It’s wonderful to experience this change while you’re walking along the path and the landscape around you start slowly to change: durmast oaks become smaller and smaller, until they become short bushes at the sides of the street; earlier it was easy to walk in among trees, whereas in the warmer area you must take into consideration that vegetation could want to hold you, even pulling you from your clothes.

We are in a living world, we perceive it in its transformation, in its different environments that mix and match together as you pass to lower altitudes, while you’re going from the Murgia toward the territory of the warmer ravines.

Sant’Antuono Wood is along the provincial road 36 Mottola – Martina Franca and is part of the territory of Mottola. It’s always open and my advice is to organise a trip in a sunny morning, so you can taste the beauty of fresh air in shaded areas and being warmed by the embracing sunlight bursting through the crown of the trees, pampered by the fragrance of the autumn wood.