Lovely Lecce

The train ride from Bari to Lecce was uneventful and, in the grand Italian tradition, arrived thirty minutes late. Sadly, it seems the nasty weather we were experiencing over the last couple of days followed us southward.

Once we left the train station, we found our way through the old town's winding streets to our B&B, despite the challenges Google Maps was experiencing. The narrow laneways lined with three and four storey buildings wreak havoc on a GPS signal. We often had to stop in an open piazza to let the app relocate our position.

After checking in, we went out to have lunch at a little vegan cafe called Zenzero, where we ate some yummy dishes that offered a welcome change to all the dough and pasta we've been eating. Because of the rain, we didn't spend a lot of time wandering the streets, although our first impressions of the town make us anxious to see it in the sunlight.

They call Lecce the pearl of Puglia and it's a well-deserved moniker. Every corner turned offers a view of another spectacular structure, be it a church, a palace, a castle or a piazza. The city abounds in history and, take away the electrical installations, one can see what it looked like here five or six hundred years ago.

After our brief tour, we returned to our B&B to dry off, do a little internet research and choose a spot for dinner. Our first choice, Il Volo, didn't offer pizza, so we again braved the elements and walked through the wind and rain to La Romana where we had very good pizza and Moretti beer. This is a shop that caters mostly to take out orders and has only three small tables for those eating in. But boy, there sure was a lot of pizza going out that door. One fellow left with a stack of seven pizza boxes!

After dinner, the rain had stopped, and we slowly walked back to our lodgings to wind down.

Another day, another pizza!Read more