Legend puts the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and a hundred mounted knights under this oak's canopy during a storm, which is where its local name comes from: Quercia dei Cento Cavalieri, the Oak of a Hundred Knights. Nobody has ever documented the emperor's visit, and the crown alone makes the story easy to picture regardless. It shades nearly 700 square metres, wide enough that a hundred riders sheltering under it is an easy thing to imagine rather than an obvious exaggeration. It is a Vallonea oak, a species barely present in Italy outside a handful of specimens, with a girth of about 4.5 metres and a trunk that has fed the region's leather-tanning trade for generations, its acorns rich in the tannin that trade needed. Sources put its age at 700 to 900 years, a spread nobody has closed, and give it the height of a middling office building, 18 to 20 metres. Italy named it Albero dell'Anno, Tree of the Year, in 2019, sent it on to compete for the European title in 2020, and the WWF made it Puglia's own symbol tree back in 2000. It stands on the roadside between Tricase and Marina Serra on the way to Santa Maria di Leuca, at the southern tip of the Salento peninsula, free to reach by car, with parking that visitors describe as an afterthought for a tree this well known.
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Getting there
Along the road between Tricase and Marina Serra, toward Santa Maria di Leuca, Salento
You can recognise it by its huge, low, spreading crown, wide enough to have sheltered a hundred riders by local legend. It stands on the roadside between Tricase and Marina Serra.
Free, roadside; stands beside the road from Tricase toward Marina Serra/Santa Maria di Leuca. Visitor notes mention little parking and that it is easiest to approach from the Leuca direction, but no gate or private-land restriction found in any source.
Rural roadside site outside Tricase; reached by car, no public transport identified.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
- In the official register: Alberi monumentali della Puglia (Regione Puglia), no. 02/L419/LE/16
- italiachecambia.org
- lentium.it
- hdsalento.com
- Regione Puglia: Elenco degli alberi monumentali della Regione Puglia, no. 02/L419/LE/16