5/11 – Lecce is about 8 miles from the Adriatic Sea, half way down the heel of Italy in the region of Puglia. We arrived Tuesday around 10:30 AM but could not have our apartment until 2 PM. We began walking around town to kill the time. We parked the car in a free area of the city hoping it would be ok to leave it there for a bit. Little did we know it was actually a 30 minute parking area. No one pays attention to rules when it comes to parking your car though. Oh, they hand out tickets, sometimes, but you have to be illegally parked (in a crosswalk or on the corner) when the police come by to check and issue tickets.

We roamed around and had a light lunch then were able to check into our apartment. We had directions from the landlord and it took us a minute to find it since the street names were not on many of the buildings. We walked to the apartment before unloading the car to see if we could find it. We were in the correct area and had to find #10 with a green door. I found the green door #10 and when I looked at the building, it was kind of in disrepair. I looked up and saw a space where a window used to be so I said if that’s our apartment, we are getting a hotel. I’m not going in there! We kept walking and found more #10 apartments but no green door. I decided to go around the corner and bingo, there it was: nice green door #10. The landlord was waiting for us and he spoke very good English so in the door we go – bend down so you don’t hit your head while stepping over the threshold. The doors in these converted palaces are the size of our garage doors only twice as tall and solid wood so “personnel doors” about 2 feet by 4 & 1/2 feet are cut into the giant door. There’s about a 6-8″ “threshold” to step over which even for this short little Italian raises the head enough to hit the top of the personnel door frame! Jim hits his head almost every time he steps through it – usually on the brass “knocker” thus preserving the larger door!

Next we start climbing steps, go through another door, up more the steps, through door #3, up more steps to door #4 which was at the 54 steps point and out onto a beautiful rooftop and terrace. A step down and Door #5 put us into our apartment which is absolutely wonderful. It has a fully equipped kitchen, large bedroom, large bath and a living area with a table and sofa, fireplace and tv. The best part is right outside the door where you step up onto a covered terrace with a table and chairs plus other chairs including lounge chairs to relax in the sun or shade. The landlord is very nice, speaks English a little better than we speak Italian so we communicate easily and he is extremely helpful, telling us what to visit in town, where to eat, where to go by car to see beautiful areas and his wifi is fantastic! YAY!

We finished up Tuesday doing a lot of walking, hitting the market for a few things and finally relaxing after walking about 17,000 steps. Man, was I tired but this apartment sure made up for it!

Wednesday morning, Jim went for an early morning walk and hopefully to find a bakery that had fresh bread to have with our morning eggs. He found a different area that we did not see yesterday so after we ate and cleaned up, we headed out to see this new area. WOW, it was amazing. Lots of cute shops, cafés, churches — and ruins. As we walked around we found the area where you can jump on a little open air train which takes you around the town so you can hear all about the buildings and the history of this area. It takes about an hour and was so much fun and the weather was perfect. There was a group of Italian men who joined us and they were an absolute hoot. We were chatting and laughing the entire time. They made the ride more fun.

Came back to the apartment for a bit before heading out to lunch. Found a nice little place and we both had a pasta dish. Jim had Tagliatelle with chickpeas – delicious – and I had Pappardelli with porcini mushrooms and crunchy prosciutto, yummy too. That was enough for us along with some good white wine.

Now that it was time to tour again, I wanted to go back to the ruins this afternoon so I could get some good photos. This is the Roman Amphitheater. The amphitheater is amazing and of course got my attention. It’s small but the literature indicates we are seeing only 25% of the original structure and that most of it is under the surrounding city structures, like that new looking building.

You sort of have to pay attention to your research when looking up sites like this amphitheater and the Roman Theater in Lecce. Many websites like Wikipedia and even Trip Advisor will show photos as being one or the other of these sites, often posted by tourists, and the photos will be inaccurate. For example, here in Lecce, there is a Roman Theater and a Roman Amphitheater. Above are photos of the amphitheater; this is a photo of the Teatro Romano, or Roman Theater, which is used for live shows when not closed for COVID or renovations. Notice the differences in rows of seats, the arena size and that there is no tall, somewhat smooth wall behind the “stage” on the right. Hey, we are in a university town so we need to be accurate.

After that we attempted to find a post office where we could mail a couple of postcards. After all I didn’t spend twenty minutes in the post office waiting for Christmas Stamps for nothing! It seemed to take forever but we never did find the post office, maybe tomorrow. We did manage to find a renovated palace that was done very nicely. I could not get a clear shot of it so I had to stick my arm and my phone through the fence for the shot (praying I did not drop my phone.) It was worth it; the building was really well done.

Heading back towards the apartment and town center, we passed a couple of interesting sights. One was this amazing, gnarled tree which has an unbelievably pretty canopy. Haven’t figured out the species but parked along the side of the street, it certainly grabs one’s attention.

Lecce really is a gold mine of beautiful sights and art and structures. Parks and plazas are also plentiful. We passed several still on the way to the apartment. This sculpture was one.

And then we cannot let a city or maybe even a day go by without pointing out some of the churches. Even to us, we wonder why we even visit all these churches and museums but they are all different to some degree, they all exhibit different and amazing characteristics or art or something, and each and every one “forces” us to imagine how the heck people 300, 500, 1,000 years ago, or even more, had the skills and tools to create these amazing structures and works of art. And another thing – you really can’t look at the exterior and know what the interior will look like. Take the Church of Saint Irene. Fairly normal exterior with some wonderful Baroque touches but the main altar and side chapels are out of this world.

Okay, okay, we get it! Enough church for one day but you have to admit, effort and talent to create such beauty, beauty that lasts for centuries, is amazing. The main altar in most of our churches do not come close to what we see in these side chapels of churches in Italy. As we head out the door to find our beauty and barber shops this morning, we’ll leave you with the same view we have: