When I said in my last post that I was going to spend a whole day on a bus, I meant a whole day. I had to make my way from Sicily in the west all the way to the Salentine Peninsula (Italy’s boot heel) in the east. I left Catania about 930am. The most exciting thing that happened was the ferry crossing from Sicily to the mainland.

About 530pm I arrived in Taranto for a four hour layover. So I wandered the streets of Taranto and got some pizza for what its worth, then caught my second bus and arrived in quiet Lecce around 11pm. It was a pretty boring day. Even though I slept most of the day on the bus, I crashed pretty hard when I got to my hotel and started first thing in the morning exploring picturesque Lecce, starting with their well hidden Roman Theatre.

The Roman Theatre is locked up tight. You can see it through a fence on a tiny side street, and through a window from the Museo Teatro Romano, which displays some artifacts found during the excavation.

The artifacts at the museum weren’t super interesting, but this shield designed as an art piece in the 1800’s was pretty cool.

Lecce, though established in Roman times is very much a baroque city, which means there are all sorts of crazy decorations on most of the buildings. Even within the baroque style of architecture, Lecce has its own distinctive style, known as Barocco Leccese. I got the first hint of it walking into the city through the Porta Napoli, even though it’s a pretty tame example. This pic was taken the next day, however.

I did find some random examples in my wanderings. I don’t know what was going on in the world during the baroque phase, but I can’t help but wonder what started all the madness.

Back to the Romans, Lecce also has the remains of a giant 2nd century Roman amphitheatre. It’s right in the middle of the main piazza and was discovered by construction workers in 1901. Proof that you can’t dig or build anything new in Italy without first doing a thorough archeological excavation.

Another interesting feature of the main piazza is the Colonna di Sant’Oronzo, seen in the pic below. It was originally in Brindisi and was one of the two columns that marked the end of the Appian Way, the road between Rome and Brindisi. When this one collapsed, they gave it to Lecce, which seems odd to me. Our super famous column collapsed, but you guys can have the pieces if you want, you know, since we’re not using it anymore. Lecce seemed to appreciate it though, they put it back together and put a statue of the city’s patron saint on top, Saint Oronzo.

Lecce also has a 12th century castle, but unfortunately it was closed.

Lecce also has a couple of really interesting museums. The Museo Sigismondo Castromediano is an archeological museum that spans from the Stone Age to the Messapians, the people that inhabited the area in the 5th century BC, to the Romans and beyond. Also, the Museo Faggiano, less interesting visually, but with the most interesting story overall. Signore Faggiano bought his place in Lecce hoping to open a restaurant, but a pipe was leaking sewage somewhere and had to be fixed first. So he started digging, and found Knights Templar symbols, medieval walls, Roman crypts, frescoes from a convent, and even Messapian foundations! This went on for over a year and when the city tried to tell him he couldn’t conduct his own archeological excavation, he told them he wasn’t, he was just looking for that damn leaky pipe. Ha! It’s now a museum and he’s still trying to find a property suitable to open his restaurant. Good luck!

And circling back to Lecce’s unique baroque style, there are like forty crazy baroque churches in town! Don’t worry, we’re not gonna visit all of them, just a few. Lecce’s main cathedral, Cattedrale Maria Santissima Assunta e Sant’Oronzo, like most of the churches in town, were originally 12th century constructions that got 17th century baroque makeovers. This cathedral is really unique for having two facades.

And the crypt has holes in the floor that you can peep down into and see almost a thousand years worth of bones.

These next two churches can pretty much speak for themselves. I just include them as good examples of the baroque craziness going on in this city. There isn’t any amount of time you can spend staring at these places and see every detail.

Lecce’s showpiece is most definitely the Basilica di Santa Croce, though. Interestingly, Lecce’s baroque architecture was primarily promoted by two brothers, Antonio and Giuseppe Zimbalo. I’m telling you, there’s no way anybody constructs buildings like this without some kind of chemical assistance. No way!

I usually don’t like modern art museums, but would you believe I paid €5 to go to Lecce’s modern art museum because I heard they had a good view of the Roman Theatre? Of course I did! And they had a better view than the actual Roman Theatre Museum.

All of Lecce’s unique architecture is also, surprisingly, remarkably uniform. Every street looks basically the same, although with lots of twists and turns, and I get lost a lot, which is really unusual for me.

I took one day trip from Lecce south to Otranto. Otranto is not exactly, but pretty much Italy’s eastern most point. It was unbelievably important as a trade hub for many centuries thanks to its location, so it’s also been fought over about a billion times in it’s history. It’s been a fairly quiet place since 1480, though, thanks to a Turkish massacre that occurred then.

The main reason to visit Otranto is for its approximately 11th century cathedral. I read that Otranto’s Cattedrale di Santa Maria Annunziata was the most fascinating church in all of Italy. I thought, “What a bold statement!”, but it just might be true. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside is pretty remarkable.

It was originally built in the 11th and 12th centuries, but the best part of this church is the floor. From 1163 to 1165, a monk named Pantaleone created an amazing mosaic based on the Tree of Life, that covers the floor of the entire church. It supposedly traces man’s journey from sin to salvation with old testament scenes and lots of medieval imagery that I don’t really get. I just know it’s a real masterpiece and I’m glad I got to see it.

That’s not all though, Cattedrale di Santa Maria Annunziata also has some really well preserved 11th century frescoes.

And as I mentioned a bit ago, Otranto suffered a huge attack from the Turks in 1480. Historians are still unsure if the attack was for religious or political purposes since the Turks abandoned the place a few short years later, but 813 Otranto residents were killed in the attack. Their bones are now kept in three very tall cabinets behind an alter in the cathedral. It’s quite a sight!

The rest of my day in Otranto was pretty quiet. I explored the 15th century Castello Aragonese, built right after the Turks left. I got some great views of Otranto’s beautiful coastline from the ramparts.

And finally, I cruised by the tiny little Chiesa di San Pietro, Otranto’s oldest church, thought to be from the 5th century. It supposedly has some awesome frescoes, but like just about everything else in Otranto that day it was closed.

I felt lucky that I got to see the cathedral and the castle in Otranto because like I said, everything was closed. Every store, every restaurant, every market, everything! I finally found one supermarket way at the edge of town past the train station open before leaving to fill my growling stomach. Lunch ended up being a bag of potato chips, a packet of salami, a fuji apple, and a coke. Mmmmm! Anyway, that’s all for Lecce, but stay tuned as I head northwest to my next stop…