Lecce stone is soft when you cut it and hardens in the air: on this geological gift the Lecce baroque was born, the explosion of embroidered façades that earned the city the label of «the Florence of the South». Santa Croce is the manifesto, but the game is to look up everywhere; below, in piazza Sant'Oronzo, half a Roman amphitheatre surfaces.
Before the Romans there were the Messapians, and in Greek Salento Lecce is still called Luppìu: griko, the ancient Greek of these lands, has not entirely disappeared. It is the easternmost provincial capital in Italy, and it was Italian Capital of Culture in 2015. Papier-mâché is the other city craft, and the workshops are holding on. Daily ritual: iced coffee with almond milk and a warm pasticciotto. From here Salento opens in two: the Adriatic on one side, the Ionian on the other, never more than half an hour away.
Basilica di Santa Croce · duomo di Lecce · anfiteatro romano di Lecce and 33 more
Burrata di Andria
24 places to stay · top rated: Fiermonte Museum by La Fiermontina 10.0 · Tivoli Palazzo 1880 Lecce Hotel 9.7
Next up: Saints Oronzo, Giusto and Fortunato, Tuesday 24 August
Nearest airport: Brindisi, 39 km away
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📅 Every year, from 24 to 26 August
Lecce's main feast lasts three days, from 24 to 26 August. The statues of the three patrons are enthroned in the cathedral and carried in procession on the 24th.
Basilica di Santa Croce The largest Franciscan church in the world and Italy's secular pantheon, housing the tombs of Michelangelo and 
duomo di Lecce The enclosed square with a single door, and the cathedral that shows its flank. 
anfiteatro romano di Lecce The Roman amphitheatre under Lecce's square: only a third of it is visible. 
chiesa di Sant'Irene The church of the demoted saint, where Lecce voted its plebiscite in 1860. 
castello di Lecce Charles V's fortress at Lecce, Puglia's largest, with the papier-mâché museum. 
Basilica di San Giovanni Battista al Rosario Baroque basilica in Lecce by Giuseppe Zimbalo (1691-1728), with an exuberant façade and a stone pulpit. Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Lecce, but an easy day trip away.
