Nov. 27, 2024
San Biagio Nice House, Lecce, Italy
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| My Trulli House |
Having gone to bed very early the night before, I got up early. Breakfast at a local restaurant was included with my room. The restaurant was very close to where I needed to return my key, so I packed my belongings into the car before I went to breakfast. I was very pleased with the breakfast buffet. There were hard boiled eggs and yogurt with granola in addition to the usual pastries. There was also local bread with a just a touch of lemon. The best part was the coffee machine. While it didn’t produce anything like American coffee, it would give me a shot of decaf espresso and a few ounces of hot water. There was actually a pitcher of milk. I was so excited that I had two (not that they added up to more than 8 oz.)
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| Basilica in Alberobello |
I had seen another tourist or two in Trani and Bari and there were more in Alberobello. At breakfast, I met a family from Malaysia when my services were required to translate. I chatted with them for a few minutes. It was the first time I had spoken English in weeks.
After breakfast, I turned in my key and went to explore Alberobello. My first stop was the Basilica of Saints Cosma and Damiano. The current 19th century church was built on the site of a smaller, 17th century one. The church was constructed in the shape of a Latin cross. The chapels in the two arms were surprisingly more ornate than the central one.
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| Alberobello Trulli |
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| Trulli Decorated for Christmas |
I wasn’t interested in shopping, so made a quick transit of the main street and climbed down the big staircase to the piazza and then climbed a steep street into the neighborhood of the trulli. Between the piazza and the trulli church at the top of the hill stretched a collection of trulli devoted entirely to tourism. There were rentals, shops, and restaurants. I surprising number were open and people were busily decorating for Christmas. I went to see the church. There was road work going on in front of the church and it was difficult to see it clearly. The building was not open and seemed to have been converted into a movie theater. There were some very nice, larger trulli homes on the top of the hill. I explored the streets in the trulli zone and then returned to my car.
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| Trulli Mansion |
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| The Trulli Church |
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| Trulli in the Olives |
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| Trulli Roofs in Locorotondo |
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| Locorotondo |
Locorotondo also had trulli and I drove there, next. I wasn’t too impressed with the modern part of the town. I parked and started walking, in search of trulli. Actually, I should have driven in search of trulli because I found them outside of the town where it would have been easier to park. Rather than being crowded together as in Alberobello, groups of them were scattered across the olive groves and vineyards of the countryside. It was very scenic. About noon, I bought a few provisions, walked back to my car, and started the drive to Lecce.
It took me about and hour and a half to drive from Locorotondo to Lecce. Lecce was a big place, but not as crowded and vertical as Trani or Bari. I couldn’t check into my lodging until 16:00, so I parked the car near my lodging and went wandering around the old city of Lecce. I entered the old city through the impressive San Biagio Gate, built in the 18th century to replace an earlier one that had fallen into disrepair.
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| The San Biagio Gate |
Not far inside the gate, I came to the Roman amphitheater dating from the reign of Agustus. It was surrounded with construction fencing and seemed to be undergoing some kind of renovation. Of course, it was closed. It had been discovered and partially excavated in the early twentieth century during urban redevelopment. Only about a third of the original structure was visible. The remainder was buried beneath the square and surrounding buildings.
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| The Roman Amphitheater in Lecce |
I stopped into the small church of Santa Maria della Grazie close to the amphitheater. It was the only church I was able to enter, as the others were all part of a tour of baroque architecture that required a ticket. As it was late in the day, I elected to leave that tour for another day. I did walk over to the cathedral square. The local sandstone was easy to carve, which led to the profusion of baroque architecture in the city. The cathedral, bell tower, seminary, and bishop’s palace nearly surround the square with ornate buildings. The lofty bell tower was undergoing repairs and an immense cherry picker was raising a beam that would be used to extend the scaffolding.
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| Cherrypicker at the Lecce Cathedral |
By the time I got back to the neighborhood of my lodging, I really need to use the bathroom. I decided to try to enter the house a little early. The owner used an interesting system whereby I checked in online, uploading a picture of my passport and filling out a form. Then, the system gave me two buttons to click on my phone, one for the street door and one for the apartment. Unfortunately, the system was very literal and wouldn’t allow me to open the door before 16:00. I had to sit in my car, crossing my legs, for half an hour. The system worked fine once the check-in time had passed.
Parking in the neighborhood was tricky. The streets were very narrow and crowded. The wider streets with more parking all required payment and the ones nearest my house had short time limits. I didn’t mind paying to park, but the ticket machine wouldn’t take a credit card and wouldn’t accept 1 or 2 euro coins. I only had so much small change. I paid to park until 18:00, but then had to go in search of a free spot. I found one several blocks away and hoped I would be able to locate the car when I needed it. I would be reluctant to move it unnecessarily.
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| Living Room in Lecce |
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| Loft Bedroom (Warmer Up There) |
For about $45 a night, I had rented an entire house in Lecce. It had two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and bath. It was very nice but the heating was a problem. Apparently, some parts of Italy (I had seen this in Verona, too) had limits on the amount of heating allowable. The thermostat was automatic and did not turn on. It was set to 12 degrees. Fortunately, it had been a warm day and the temperature in the house was 18 degrees (about 64 degrees Fahrenheit.) Legally, the heat could only be set to 19 degrees and only for nine hours a day. I wondered which nine hours that would be. I spent the evening wearing three layers and hoped there would be enough blankets.
Nov. 28, 2024
San Biagio Nice House, Lecce, Italy
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| Heating Rules |
The heat came on about midnight and raised the temperature to 19 degrees, where it stayed. Expecting it to go off after nine hours, I hung around the house until 10:00 in the morning, taking advantage of not freezing. When it didn’t shut off at 10:00, I left the house and headed to the Piazza Duomo to begin my tour of Lecce’s baroque architecture. The golden Lecce sandstone is very easy to carve and made the fantastic details of baroque design possible. Lecce’s archdiocese offers a tour of five sites for a single 12 euro ticket. The tour allows you to download some very informative audioguides that made the visits more interesting.
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| The Seminary Palace |
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| Chapel of St. Gregory |
I began in the old seminary palace, since that is where the ticket office was located. The lower floor contained a museum with contemporary relgious art. The Chapel of St. Gregory opens off the cloister and housed some interesting modern sculptures. Opened in 1709, the seminary palace looks onto the cathedral square and the cloister is graced by a beautifully carved well executed by the architect, Cino, himself.
The cathedral, begun in the mid-seventeenth century, replaced a smaller, earlier church from 1114. The interior was as rich and ornate as any I had seen. Stained glass windows added to the effect. Each altar was decorated with intricately carved columns and niches. The chapel of the nativity featured a nativity scene preserved from the earlier cathedral which looked out of place in its simplicity. Even the side aisles were gorgeous.
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| Cathedral Crypt |
The crypt was striking in its simplicity, although the tiled floor was unique. Most interesting were the capitals of the many columns, each featuring a different creature. There were tombs set into the walls for important personages and grates in the floor allowed a glimpse of the bones of less fortunate souls.
The 72 meter tall bell tower was crowned with colored tiles that were unfortunately obscured by scaffolding during my visit. Ordinarily, it is crowned by a statue of Saint Orontius but, due to the repair work, Saint Orontius was sitting in the lobby of the City Hall where I got to see him up close. Unfortunately, the glass surrounding him was so reflective that I couldn't get a good picture.
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| Orontius Over the Portal |
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| Church of San Matteo |
From the Duomo, I wound through the narrow streets of the old city to the Church of San Matteo. The plan of the church is a slightly eliptical single nave, reminiscent of Roman architecture. It is so ornately decorated that it has been called the “Pantheon of Lecce Baroque.” The altar dedicated to St. Matthew is the most ornate and abounds with sinuous carved and gilded columns. Even the wooden frame of the organ was richly carved and gilded, although the pipes were hidden behind a fabric screen. The archways above the chapels were once screened so that nuns could
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| Chapel of San Matteo |
observe the services without being seen. The column to the right of the entrance is partially carved, while the other one is smooth. It is said that the devil was so jealous of the carving on the church that he took the artist to the underworld. In any case, the artisan died, and the carving of the columns was never completed.
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| Part of My Thanksgiving Dinner |
Someone had given me a flyer about a restaurant offering a prix fixe meal and it seemed like it might be a good place to eat on Thanksgiving. I decided to check it out. It was outside the city wall and, on my way there, I spied an Indian restaurant. I like nothing better than Indian food and I never get it in Mexico. I decided I would be very thankful to eat Indian food. I ordered a mixed tandoori platter, palak paneer, garlic naan, and basmati rice and washed it down with a Kingfisher beer. I probably didn’t eat a third of it, but I had enough to feed myself for a few more days. Fortunately, it wasn’t too far from my house, so I was able to put the leftovers in the fridge before continuing on my tour.
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| The Church of Santa Chiara |
The next stop was the Church of Santa Chiara. While modest in size, the church shows plenty of baroque excess. The facade was never completed, which explains its curiously flat top. The Church of Santa Chiara is notable for its papier mache ceiling, fabricated in 1738 to approximate a coffered wooden ceiling. The altar of St. Blaise displays a papier mache statue of the saint that is so fine it is impossible to believe it was made from paper and wire.
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| Turkish Telamon on Santa Croce |
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| Chapel of St. Paul |
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| St. Paul Detail |
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| Santa Croce Interior |
After the churches, I thought I would stop at the castle on my way home, but they were closing up when I arrived at 16:00. Instead, I walked home and spent the evening writing and digesting my large lunch. As of 22:30, I still could not face the idea of dinner.
Nov. 29, 2024
San Biagio Nice House, Lecce, Italy
I was a little concerned about my car. I had parked far away in the dark and been a little confused. I had taken a picture of a landmark, but still worried that it might be hard to find. I need not have worried. I found the car easily and it was fine. I decided to look for a closer parking space because I didn’t want to drag my baggage so far. I drove back to my neighborhood and was concerned to discover that even the street with pay parking was completely full. It had been nearly empty when I arrived and I was puzzled. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to when cars left or arrived, probably because no one used them to commute. After driving around for several minutes, I found a spot to park only two blocks from my house. It was in a construction zone and technically prohibited, but there was room to get by and several other cars already parked.
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| The Castle of Carlos V |
I wanted to visit the castle. I walked across the town outside the wall to the castle grounds and then around the side to the entrance. It turned out that the castle was open to the public, but most areas were cordoned off unless you were part of a guided tour. No tours appeared to be planned for that day. I passed through the walls and wended my way through the old city to the Palazzo Vernazza. I didn’t have any better luck visiting the Palazzo Vernazza. It, too, was only accessible with a group and there were no tours scheduled that afternoon.
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| Castle Courtyard |
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| Political Rally Seen Through the Gate |
I started back to my house. As I approached the San Biagio Gate, I heard someone speaking through a megaphone. It sounded like a political rally. At first, I wondered if it wasn’t related to Palestine, but then I realized it was a political party rally. I sincerely hoped it wasn’t some xenophobic rally, but I looked up the name of the party on the many waving flags and discovered that CGIL stood for Confederazione Generale Italiana de Lavoro, the Italian labor party. The rally celebrated the 80th anniversary of the founding of the party. The rally broke up just as I reached the Piazza Italiana. Scores of people streamed towards my house. I realized the rally was the reason that parking was so impacted.
I wanted to stop in a cafe for a coffee and pastry, but I had already had one of the coffees that came with my house and didn’t really want another tiny cappuccino, anyway. I passed a bakery and bought a few Christmas cookies to take home. On my way home, I saw three empty spots on my block. I ran to my car and managed to move it to a spot across the street from the house. I would be able to leave it there until I left.
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| Italian Christmas Cookies |
The weather was lousy and I had seen all the interesting attractions that were open. I spent the afternoon listening to podcasts, eating Indian leftovers, and working on my blog.
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