..often called as the “Florence of the South”, this incredibly charming city, set between the Ionian and Adriatic seas, is a must-see place in the South of Italy.
After suffering under decades of martial Ottoman-Empire rule, Puglia experienced a sudden and fairly complete peace – which dovetailed with the flourishing of the baroque across the peninsula, resulting in a stunning confluence of ornate palaces and cathedrals frothing with carved and sculpted details in Lecce. Most of them were built within about 100 years of each other using the local “pietra leccese”, a soft stone that catches the light in spectacularly different ways, rendering the city bright white, shell pink or burnished gold, depending on the time of day.
Nothing in Lecce is very far from anything else.. contained and eminently strollable, it’s a place in which to lose oneself completely: each narrow cobbled lane inevitably gives onto a bigger throughway, which itself eventually gives onto a monumental piazza or cathedral.
..Let yourself follow the stone lane that leads to the Church of Santa Croce, in this hidden corner, between the artisan workshops of papier-machè and the ancient Jewish quarter you will find the very essence of Lecce..
