Lecce LE

Lecce is the only one of Apulia's six provinces to touch two seas — the Adriatic across the Strait of Otranto, the Ionian on the Gulf of Taranto — and it is the easternmost point of Italy, the heel of the boot. Its 96 municipalities cover the whole Salento peninsula: flat country, narrowing as it runs south. The coat of arms comes from Terra d'Otranto, the old district that until 1923 also took in what are now Taranto and Brindisi.

The soft local limestone, Lecce stone, was shipped far beyond the region for facades and interiors; the front of the Basilica di Santa Croce shows what it can do. Otranto keeps its cathedral and a harbour on the strait, Gallipoli and Nardò face the Ionian, and Galatina and Copertino sit inland among the wheat where visitors thin out. August fills the coast; off season the province reads better.