Lecce - 20 October 2022

Not that I’m modest - but spag bol last night was up there with best food we’ve had this trip! Must have been the fresh tagliatelle and extra Parmesan!

Another average sleep for me last night - the temperature doesn’t seem to change that much where we are at present - up to say 22° ish during day, but is still about 17° when we go to bed, and doesn’t change much. The place was great, really quiet, no disturbance - but can’t have blinds open because the carparks are so well lit, therefore can’t cool off enough. Captain Martini on the other hand has remained covered up in his 9 tog duvet!

I drove today, about an hour to Lecce. OK drive, but you never really know what you’re going to encounter when you get towards your parking place. Today it was cars parked either side, one way, and a bit narrow in places for Dave - but all alright!

Lecce (population c. 95,000) is the principal town of the Salantine peninsula, the product of 17th century mercantile money and the zeal of religious orders. The style of the architecture is known as Leccesse baroque. Lecce is also known as the Florence of the South.

We’ve only cycled just over 3 miles there and back, and walked our 10,000 steps.

The tourist information had no free maps - so had to pay €2.50 for the privilege. I did tell the lady it was the most expensive map we’ve bought in all Italy - even Rome was €1.50 - she just shrugged and said it was a private business! I had been into another place to ask about maps, they only sold tickets - but she said no map - however, when I went back to buy tickets for the churches and paid €18, she gave me a smaller, better map! Wish I’d known that first!

So, on the basis that Lecce has over 90 palazzos and over 50 monuments and churches - I’ll be as brief as possible!

Think it has been the external architecture that has wowed us today - so intricate!

It has an upmarket feel to it, clean - lots of high end cars - Maserati, Porsches, big BMWs. Along with this goes the ‘lookie, lookie’ men and women - really desperate to sell you something, and beggars in the street, and in entrances to churches…

To be honest, quite a few of the churches looked very similar inside to us - have lumped together the first free church - Saint Irene, along with Saint Chiara and San Mateo (12 Apostle statues). They are light and airy with high altars and multiple side chapels. The notable difference is in Saint Chiara, which has a papier-mâché false ceiling from the 18th century.

We decided on pizza for lunch. Absolutely huge! My buffalo mozzarella today tasted very different to the cheese in Gallipoli!

Tintin was a bit disappointed, we couldn’t have Aperol spritzers, and told either Coke or Fanta. Then we saw them serving wine at a table nearby! Something was lost in translation! We still haven’t been brave enough to ask for one pizza to share - they are just too big! €34.

Walked to the remains of the 3rd century Roman amphitheater - most of it is under the church and square - but no matter - we’ve seen lots now!

The exact origins of ‘love locking’ (padlocks) emerged in Rome and Paris during the 2000s, having become romantic tokens - universal symbols for the commitment, strength and constancy of a relationship…

The Cathedral of Santa Croce was built by the religious order of the Celestines between 1549 and 1646 and has the most stunning facade. Think today the pictures can do the talking!

From here we wandered some back streets as we like to do, to get more of a feel for the place. Basically, just huge buildings everywhere - past the castle, nice fountain with pigeons flying everywhere.

It was good to see an elderly man opening the door for his (?) cats, they looked well loved and fed - great!

We only went through two of the four big arches.

Once again, lots of little alleyways, shops - not so touristy, some quite upmarket!

Then we returned to the Duomo - as there had been a wedding going on when we arrived - check out the heels!

It was rebuilt between 1659 and 1670. It only shows two facades as it’s in a closed square. It’s overshadowed by a five tiered slender campanile (1682).

The wooden ceiling also has a painting of The Last Supper.

Once again, the crypt is huge - not sure about peering behind glass and seeing lots of skulls and bones - work in progress!

Lastly, included in our ticket price was a visit to the museum and the Seminary Palace. It was a quick whizz through for us - surfing Jesus?!

When we left Dave this morning, the alarm system for the lockers was playing up again, spent a while opening, closing, cleaning contacts - nothing worked. Nearly 5 hours later, it’s magically working again! We can only think that Dave had been so rattled on his journey here that some of the contacts are failing - will be difficult to troubleshoot!

Our next problem is according to our ‘blip’ counter - we don’t have any gas! It’s a blatant lie, as the fridge is on, and we boiled the kettle for a cup of tea! Tomorrow will be interesting. Some other moho people in Italy have posted they can’t get GPL, others commenting it’s harder in France and even UK too. We’ll let you know!