The Botanical Walk amongst the blades and swallows’ caves

The energy radiating from La Lama della Grotta delle Rondini is truly infectious and unsettling. At the entrance to the winding Ostuni Coastal Dunes park, situated next to the two-thousand-year-old Montalbano Dolmen, right where the Roman Via Traiana once ran – sections of which, with their cobblestones, still remain – this is where the agricultural and experiential project of Hekomia – the farm run by Fabrizio Pellegrino and Donatella Caporizzi – takes shape. Fabrizio has restored and preserved the natural flora of this canyon, which conceals natural caves dating back to the Neolithic era and long inhabited by shepherds and farmers. He keeps bees and produces spirits and essential oils using wild plants, which now take centre stage in his tasting ‘Botanical Walks’, organised in collaboration with Masseria Torre Maizza, Rocco Forte Hotel. Participants collect and identify savory, helichrysum, bramble leaves and bay leaves, whilst tasting mastic berries, lemon balm and wild carrots. In this way, a knowledge of spices and, indeed, edible herbs – which have once again become abundant and plentiful in this treasure trove of biodiversity, comparable to a rocky gorge pointing towards the sea – is cultivated. Mullein or ‘king’s candelabra’, marigold, capers and spiked thyme peep out from among the foxes’ dens. Once the harvest is complete, flowers and leaves are left to steep beneath a totemic olive tree, whilst we prepare herbal teas alongside Fabrizio and Donatella, appreciating the beauty of the combinations and feeling, in both mind and stomach, the goodness and efficacy of nature at its simplest.