Saturday 9th May 2026. Lecce, Puglia, Italy
We left Brindisi with plans to settle for the afternoon at a parking spot in Lecce and wander in tomorrow.
Arriving at the spot, just a carpark off of a busy one way road, we realised that it wasn’t a great place to while away a few hours. With this in mind, we put our walking shoes back on and headed out for the old town. It was still warm but we armed ourselves with a light jumper in case the evening grew chilly.
It was about a 25min walk into Lecce, passing some gorgeous old villas along the way. I felt a bit like a peeping tom popping my camera through the fences to get a good pic 
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We entered the old town through an ancient gateway that practically set the scene for the rest of our visit.
Lecce is glorious. It’s bursting with Baroque! You come across an amazing building and think wow, then there’s another and another. It’s hard to take it all in and you end up glazing over.
You definitely want to spend some time here, just to soak it all up.
We seem to have visited at the time of festivals and in Brindisi and Lecce there were various music stands set up, some performances were in progress.
All of the beautiful churches and palazzos charge for entry, there is a ticket to see the main 5 which offers a discount if you want to go inside.
As normal, we viewed it all from the outside.
One of the jaw dropping moment’s was approaching Cathedral Square, the entrance is amazing and then as you turn the corner….wow, just beautiful, with the added bonus of music to accompany our entrance.
I’d read that with the sun shining on the city it glows golden and I can attest to that. Catching the last of the sun today was just perfect.
Lecce has not 1 but 2 Roman amphitheatres, one discovered during gardening work and another during street works. Amazing!
One is cordoned off and having work done but the other is all on display from the roadside in one of the main piazza’s 
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We stopped for a drink in a piazza and indulged in people watching. I tried a Melangrano Spritz – pomegranite flavour – not my favourite as it had a bitter aftertaste, but still drinkable 
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Meg was wondering what was going on! It was way past her tea time and she seemed to know the exact route back to the van marching us back in record time!
The car park was emptier when we got back but the road was busy all night, so a lesson learned about road side parking….again 
. Sometimes you just can’t avoid it though.
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