Lecce

Santa Croce by morning, Porta Rudiae the next day

Day one, morning. Have a warm pasticciotto and a caffè leccese, then go straight to the Basilica di Santa Croce before the midday closure. Walk on to Piazza del Duomo, buy the combined ticket, and see the cathedral and the museum next door. Ride the lift up the bell tower for the view.

Afternoon. While the churches are shut, eat a long lunch and rest. From about 17:00, visit Piazza Sant'Oronzo and its sunken amphitheatre, then look into Museo Faggiano to see the layers found beneath an ordinary house. Stay out for the evening passeggiata along the old streets.

Day two. Walk out through Porta Napoli and back in through Porta Rudiae, taking in the Roman theatre and smaller churches such as Sant'Irene on the way. In the afternoon, take a bus or drive to San Cataldo for the nearest Adriatic beach, or go further to Otranto for its cathedral and old town on the sea. Come back for dinner in the centro storico.

Pasticciotto, rustico and ciceri e tria

Lecce eats well, and cheaply if you avoid the tourist menus in the old town. The day starts with a pasticciotto, a small oval of shortcrust pastry filled with custard. Tradition says it must be eaten warm, ideally straight from the oven.

Pair it with a caffè leccese, espresso poured over ice and sweetened with almond syrup, which is welcome on hot mornings.

At lunch or as a snack, the rustico is a round of puff pastry filled with mozzarella, tomato and béchamel. Salento pasta dishes include ciceri e tria, chickpeas with a mix of boiled and fried pasta, and orecchiette, the ear-shaped pasta of Puglia. Puccia, the local bread roll, is stuffed with anything from vegetables to cured meat.

The local reds are Negroamaro and Primitivo, and the olive oil of the Salento is excellent. For ice cream and cakes, Martinucci is a long-running local name. In the old town, look for trattorias with Puglia wine lists and local families at the tables, a cut above the many places aimed at visitors.

Otranto's mosaic, Gallipoli and Santa Maria di Leuca

Lecce sits close to two seas, the Adriatic to the east and the Ionian to the west, and the whole Salento peninsula is within easy reach. San Cataldo is the nearest beach on the Adriatic, a short drive or bus ride away.

Further south, Otranto has a walled old town on the sea and a cathedral with a huge medieval mosaic floor. The coast road south from Otranto runs along cliffs and coves toward Santa Maria di Leuca, at the very tip of the heel, where the two seas meet.

On the Ionian side, Gallipoli has an old town on a small island linked to the mainland by a bridge, surrounded by long sandy beaches. Inland, the countryside is full of olive groves and small towns with their own baroque churches.

Without a car, the seasonal buses that run from June to September are the easiest way to reach the beaches, and regional trains serve many Salento towns. Outside summer, a hire car gives you far more freedom.

The amphitheatre in Piazza Sant'Oronzo

Half of Lecce's Roman amphitheatre lies open in the middle of Piazza Sant'Oronzo, a few metres below the café tables, and it reopened on 25 October 2025 after nearly two years of restoration. Italy's official tourism portal puts its capacity at 12,000 to 14,000 spectators, and most of the arena still lies buried under the buildings around the square.

The monument dates from the reign of Augustus and was reworked later. You can see the curve of the seating and the arena floor from the railings at any hour, and the square makes a natural first stop on any walk through the old town. Access inside follows seasonal times, so check them before planning around a visit.

Castello Carlo V and the papier-mâché saints

Lecce's other big indoor sight is the castle that Charles V had rebuilt on the edge of the old town, now home to the Museo della Cartapesta. The museum shows the Salento's tradition of religious statues made from papier-mâché, a craft that still supplies figures to churches across the south.

The Ministry of Culture lists the castle as open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 to 20:00 and closed on Sunday and Monday, with a full ticket of €8 and a reduced one of €4 at the last published rates. Opening days change for exhibitions, so call the castle on +39 0832 246517 before a Sunday visit.

Workshops in the old town sell smaller figures and nativity pieces. A handmade saint is the souvenir that actually comes from Lecce; check that it is papier-mâché and not cast resin.

Under the floor at Museo Faggiano

Museo Faggiano began with a toilet repair. The owner of a house at Via Ascanio Grandi 56-58, near Piazza Sant'Oronzo, started digging to fix the plumbing and found layer on layer of the city's past, from ancient tombs to medieval rooms, wells and cisterns. The house opened as a private archaeological museum in 2008.

Glass floors and narrow stairs let you look down through two thousand years in a single building,. The stairs are steep and the passages tight, so it does not suit visitors with limited mobility. Tickets are sold at the door; the museum can be reached on +39 0832 300528.

Reading the façade of Santa Croce

Santa Croce took nearly 150 years to finish. The Celestine monks began rebuilding the basilica and its monastery in the baroque style in 1549, and the church was only completed in 1695, so the façade shows two generations of Lecce stone carving one above the other.

The lower half, with its columns and doorways, is the earlier work. Giuseppe Zimbalo (1620–1710), the architect most associated with Lecce baroque, completed the upper part around 1646, with the great rose window ringed by carved fruit and the balcony held up by a crowd of figures: animals, grotesque faces and turbaned prisoners. Stand back on the far side of Via Umberto I to take it in, then look closely, since every bracket carries a different creature.

The long building next door, the former Celestine convent, is now the seat of the provincial government and the prefecture. Zimbalo designed its rusticated front together with Gabriele Riccardi. The soft, honey-coloured Lecce stone is easy to carve when quarried and hardens with exposure, which is what made this density of decoration possible.

Lecce stone is still quarried in the Salento, and many of the town's newer buildings use it too, which is why even ordinary streets share the same warm colour at sunset.