With endless views of the Ionian and Adriatic seas, fairy-tale-like conical huts scattered across the Itria Valley, and a coastline featuring crumbling Franciscan cloisters, Puglia, the bootheel of Italy, is home to idyllic pleasure after idyllic pleasure.
This week, we share a dreamy day-trip destination on Italy’s Land’s End: Lecce, the “Florence of the South.” The over two thousand-year-old Baroque city is a pageantry of cherub-covered limestone churches, family-owned trattorias serving ciceri e tria (fried pasta with chickpeas) and medieval squares packed with post-beach crowds, once the day’s blazing sun sets and the cooler evening air drifts in.
Buongiorno
Divine pastries and sacred chapels.
• If you get to Lecce in the morning, start your day in the center of town. Pasticceria La Fornarina, a family-run pastry shop, has been whipping up Caffè Leccesi (Italian iced espressos) and regional treats like limoncini (soft almond paste with lemon covered with a very thin layer of homemade icing) and pasticciotti (a small cake filled with custard) since 1979. Nearby, another local favorite, Cotognata Leccese, serves dessert fatti in casa like la cotognata, a Salento-style quince paste.
• From there, head through the 18th-century Porta Rudiae, one of the oldest gates in Lecce, to the city’s historic center. In the early morning light, the spiral columns and wreaths etched into the limestone churches lining the square — Basilica di San Giovanni Battista, Chiesa di Santa Teresa, Basilica di Santa Croce, Chiesa di Sant'Irene, to name but a few of the dozens found there — glow with a golden hue.
Buon pomeriggio
Paper plates and papier mâché.
• Why wait for a table at one of the fine-dining spots on Via Degli Ammirati for afternoon lunch when you can just stroll up to Mezzo Quinto for some Salentino comfort food with little fuss and lots of flavor? The classic menu of polpette alla genovese (meatballs), pezzi di cavallo (horse meat stew), parmigiana di melanzane (eggplant parmesan) and greens with burrata changes with the season, not the times.
