We were up early-ish this morning in order to get into Lecce before it got too hot. We ate our breakfast – I tried out the Friselle (double-baked bread) they had left for us with some olive oil, tomato, rocket and salt. Not so sure about the bread, but the tomatoes were ?.
We arrived in Lecce at 9:30am and found a park quite close to the Centro Storico (old town) and walked towards the Piazza Sant’Oronzo (via a quick look in the Benetton store). In the Piazza is the Chiesa di Santa Maria Della Grazia and the remains of a Roman amphitheater. The church was built following the discovery of a fresco of the Madonna dating back to the 1300s.
The Roman Amphitheater was built around the 2nd Century during Hadrian’s reign and then completely buried and only rediscovered in 1901 during the construction of a bank. Today, much of it is still buried but you can see the horseshoe arena. It is estimated it used to hold around 15,000 people on two tiers, only the lower one of which remains. We could only view it from the Piazza as it is not open to the public unless it is being used for an event or performance.
We continued on to the Roman theatre (a half circle as opposed to the amphitheater which is a full circle, like the Colosseum in Rome). This would be easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. We paid to go into the museum and theatre although I’m not convinced this is worth the €3 per person (most monuments have been free for the kids but not this) when you can view it from a side street albeit at a slightly different angle.
We strolled the old town until we came to the Piazza del Duomo, different to most other Italian piazzas in that there is only one way in and out. In the Piazza stands the Duomo of Lecce (the Cattedrale Maria Santissima Assunta e S.Oronzo), first built in 1144 in Romanesque style and rebuilt in 1659 by local architect Guiseppe Zimbalo in Lecce’s Baroque style. The Cathedral is also different in that it has two different and beautiful facades.
The Duomo also has a bell tower (the first one we have come across in this part of Italy that we could go up and it had an elevator!). We took the elevator to the top which had good views over Lecce.
Whilst walking to the Basilica di Santa Croce, we came across the Chiesa di Santa Irene and couldn’t go past without checking it out (for those that don’t know, my Mum’s name is Irene). There are differing versions to the story of Irene and so her life story remains a bit of a mystery but this church was built between 1591 and 1639 and dedicated to her. She was the patron saint of Lecce until 1656 when she was replaced by Saint Oronzo.
Next was the Basilica di Santa Croce which was also designed by Zimbalo in the baroque style. It was very ornate with lots of intricate carved figures. It took 100 years to build with a lot of the time spent on the facade. Next to the Basilica is the Palazzo dei Celestini, now the seat of the local government.
We had bought a combined tickets to the churches and as two more were in the vicinity we also had a quick look at them. There was the Chiesa di Santa Chiara and the Chiesa di San Matteo. By this stage, the kids have definitely had their fill of churches for the day!
We had seen some signs for an exhibition of works by Banksy so decided to go and check it out. It was a good 15 minute walk from where we were much to the disgust of the kids as it was definitely quite warm by this stage. We arrived and had a good look around. TJ in particular really enjoyed it, the girls I think would have been happy to miss it.
We walked back to the car via two gelato places. Both had been rated highly so we decided we should weigh in our expert opinion. First up was Baldo Gelato which has clearly won a number of awards in recent years and whilst the gelato was very good, by 100% consensus, it still didn’t match up to that of the place in Otranto yesterday.
Next up was Gelateria La Romana which was rated 4.8 by google (compared to Baldo’s 4.6 and yesterday’s 4.6). It was a very modern looking place and certainly looked the part. It was clearly artisanal as well but the kids were not impressed by the flavor range – no cioccolato for a start – I mean what kind of place was this?! None the less, we were there, so we gave it a go. The gelato was nice but definitely not up to yesterday’s standards or Baldo’s for that matter.
We drove home and had some time in the sun, rest time on devices and homework time.
Mark, Sophia and I then headed into Castrignano de Greci, about 8 minutes south of the villa to Panificio Fior di Pane for some bread and came out with bread, a Focaccia Pugliese, some Nutella tart and apricot tart.
We decided to go into Martano to check that the restaurant we want to go to tomorrow had received our booking – they had so we were good to go and then we had a wee look around the town . It is a really pretty little town with some good shops.
I cooked the rest of the Orrecchiette we had bought in Bari for dinner and we had the tarts for dessert. Mark & TJ watched the Man U game before bed.
