Lecce

• Apulia is easy to reach by budget flights from the UK to either Bari or Brindisi Airports. Brindisi is much closer to Lecce. However, we landed at Bari, which required a nearly two hour coach ride to reach our hotel. Our sightseeing in Lecce consisted of a guided tour the next morning with an afternoon free to fill in the missing pieces. Still, there were parts of town that eluded us as we departed Lecce the following morning.
  
  This is an ancient settlement, some 2000 years old. Its heyday was in the prosperous 17th century which saw an explosion of construction in the flowery Baroque style so popular back then. Admirers of Baroque may find the town irresistible, especially if they do not mind whether the architecture has been colorfully restored or not. The town, when crowded with tourists, can be challenging to document with a simple camera --- or, so claims this amateur.
  
  Our guided tour began at Lecce’s obelisk, erected in 1822 in honor of a visiting monarch. We entered the historical center by way of the nearby Porta Napoli, one of three such gates in Lecce:
  

  

  
  

  

  
  The Church of the Holy Cross (aka, the Basilica di Santa Croce) was our first target and, likely, the #1 tourist attraction in town. Begun in 1353, it was nearly 350 years in the making --- perhaps, due to its ornately sculptured exterior. The facade is said to be filled with “pacing lions, howling dragons, cross-bearing angels, undersea creatures, turbaned Turks, topless women, urns, scrolls, birds, horses, heralds, shells and flowers.” When we saw the Church, it was richly decorated in scaffolding --- high, low and in-between. So, Internet photos of the exterior and interior are presented first to better convey how the Church was intended to be seen:
  

  

  

  Not all of those exterior features mentioned were obvious --- we’re still looking for some of them. Speaking as a photographer, what we did see in the tight space in front of the church, along with a throng of other tourists, was a little difficult to appreciate:
  

  

  The circled character (above) is enlarged below to demonstrate how much detail the facade does contain:
  

  

  Looks to me as if he’s more worried about that pigeon than the load he’s carrying.
  
  Not far away, we entered Piazza Sant’Oronzo, the civic heart of town, a blend of the ancient and the modern:
  

  

  The statue perched on top of the column represents Sant’Oronzo, a bishop and patron saint of Lecce. This column is one of two which originally marked the end point of the Appian Way in Brindisi. (The other column remains in Brindisi.) To the right of the column are the cubical remains of a mid-sixteenth century palace, the Sedile Palazzo, more obvious below. Today, it is used for art shows and exhibitions.
  
  Directly behind those two structures is a partially excavated Roman amphitheater:
  

  

  Constructed in 2nd century, it could hold 25,000 people. It is half-buried because other monuments over the centuries were built above it. The amphitheater is still in use for religious and arts events.
  
  The last major attraction we visited was the Lecce Cathedral or Duomo:
  

  

  Not as fancifully decorated as the basilica, the facade is still elegant.
  
  There are two ways in, the one above is the main entrance. To the left of that doorway is the campanile and, to the right, around the corner, is the other entrance:
  

  

  

  
  The Piazza del Duomo, in front of the Cathedral, felt spacious yet intimate. Here is its appearance from the main entrance steps:
  

  

  
  On our own in the afternoon, Patty and I wandered through some less frequently visited parts of town. Hidden away from the tourist throngs, this piece of Roman antiquity was worth our effort to find it:
  

  

  
  We were told Lecce residents love their siesta. If you want to meet them, you need to be out later in the day. The younger set, families with small children and the elderly all promenade the streets late in the evenings, with the town coming to life between eight and midnight.