Taranto Hotels

Taranto is a coastal city in Puglia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base.
It is the third-largest continental city of southern Italy: according to the 2001 census, it has a population of 201,349. Taranto is an important commercial and military port. It has well-developed steel and iron foundries, oil refineries, chemical works, some shipyards for building warships, and food-processing factories.
Taranto was founded in 706 BC by Dorian Greek immigrants as the only Spartan colony, and its origin is peculiar: the founders were Partheniae, sons of unmarried Spartan women and Perioeci (free men, but not citizens of Sparta); these unions were permitted by the Spartans to increase the number of soldiers (only the citizens of Sparta could become soldiers) during the bloody Messenian wars, but later they were nullified, and the sons were forced to leave. Phalanthus, the parthenian leader, went to Delphi to consult the oracle: the puzzling answer designated the harbour of Taranto as the new home of the exiles. The Partheniae arrived in Apulia, and founded the city, naming it Taras after the son of the Greek sea god, Poseidon, and of a local nymph, Satyrion.