Lecce Travel Guide

My Lecce..
In 1635, the Italian poet Ascanio Grandi identified the city of Lecce, in Apulia, by its unique soft stones. I like a lot this picture of Lecce. Actually, Lecce stone is the true protagonist of the artistic movement called Baroque Salentino.

Lecce stone is a limestone with shades between white and yellow and a sand consistency, soft and crumbly, known in dialect as leccisu. Extracted from quarries in the surrounding area of the city, Lecce's stone is really soft and can be moulded easily, almost like clay. Then it hardens and can be used as a construction material. Finally this stone weathers giving buildings and monuments that particular personality of experienced men.

Events
Lecce is a city with many feasts and religious celebrations held almost all year.

May
From 3 to 6, the Feast and Fair of Saint Irene, the Saint Patron of Lecce together with Sant'Oronzo

June
From 7 to 10, the Festival of bread and gastronomic products.

July
25, Feast of Saint Philip and St James. For the occasion it helds the annual cattle fair.

August
The main religious event of the city is the Sant'Oronzo Fair held every year 24-28 August.

December
From 13 to 24, the Fair of pupi in paper, a chance to buy beautiful pupi or nativity figures, for the crib.

Food and drinks
Bread with olives
The Salento is an area rich in local products. While you're visiting Lecce you can't miss visiting a local bakery. Indeed, there are several kinds of bread: from the simplest bread with olives, to the true specialty of the Puccia, a mixture of bread dough enriched with olive and onion, delicious by itself or filled with cold cuts.

The Rustici and the Pasticciotti
The Rustici Leccesi are pastries stuffed with meat or (better) sauce, cheese and a touch of pepper. And finally, dulcis in fundo, you can enjoy the fantastic Pasticciotto: sweet shortcrust pastry filled with cream and a drop of black cherry. Someone has recently tried replacing the cream with nutella and introduced cocoa obtaining a sweeter and darker pastry renamed Pasticiotto Obama.

The Squinzano local wine
The wine grape is one of the main crops of Salento. The landscape, flat and sunny, is a continuous succession of olive trees and vineyards where you can find fields of artichokes that have slowly supplanted the tobacco that was grown widely on this land for years. Especially popular is the wine of Squinzano, a small village nearby Lecce. It produces a red wine that goes successfully with meat dishes.

Spotlight on the Basilica of Santa Croce
The Basilica of Santa Croce is the symbol of the city of Lecce. The church, together with the adjacent Palazzo dei Celestini, forms the most flashy, festive and opulent monumental complex of Puglia, and is one of the richest in the South of Italy. Actually, it's hard to describe it in few lines: there are statues of saints, angels, floral decorations, fruit, monsters, animals, defeated enemies, balconies, windows and much more. 

The construction took about 100 years, the commitment of at least four architects (Gabriele Riccardi, Francesco Antonio Zimbalo, Cesare Penna and Giuseppe Zimbalo) and the work of more than a generation of Lecce citizens. Thankfully, the only material used was an excellent quality of Lecce stone.

The result is a harmony of colors in shades of white and ivory which leads me to compare the Basilica facade to a huge, giant and majestic wedding cake made of meringue and cream, ready to be eaten!

How to get there
Lecce is the capital of the Salento province, called also Terra d'Otranto, in Apulia.
By plane: The nearest airports are Brindisi ( almost 40km to Lecce) and Bari Palese, 136km away. Both airports offer some low cost budget airline services from across Europe, including Ryanair, Easyjet, TUIfly, as well as links to International Airports such as Rome Fiumicino and Milan Malpensa .
By car: take the highway A14 to Bari and then take the SS 16a to Lecce.
By train: Lecce is well connected by railway lines with Bari and Brindisi. The smaller towns of the Salento area are also easily reachable.

Top Ten things to see and do
1. Visit the Basilica of Santa Croce
2. Take a stroll in Piazza Duomo
3. Visit the Church of Saint Nicolò and Saint Cataldo
4. Have a trip to the Abbey of Santa Maria of Cerrate, near to Lecce
5. Visit the Roman amphitheatre
6. Visit theSan Matteo Church
7. Visit the Castromediano Museum
8. Visit the Carlo V Castle
9. Take a stroll in Piazza Sant'Oronzo
10. Sample the Puccia bread and Pasticciotto