27 January 2026 -Tuesday – Exploring Lecce

We walked into town after breakfast to meet our local guide. She reminded us that Lecce is the town known for its baroque and rococo art and architecture. There are also many symbols evident on buildings that refer to early days of ancient Roman occupation. We examined building facades and church interiors. The very ornate works were meant to show power and wealth of the bishop or the owner of a house. 
The Catholic Church has a strong hold on Italy. Apparently, baroque style was favored when church goers needed to be tempted to return to being faithful…or so one story goes. 
The twisted baroque columns as well as the surrounding flowers and fruits in stone made for extremely ornate frames for darkly painted pictures. It was the high style of the times. 

Lunch was a welcome break from this opulent style. We ate at an Irish pub that serves Guinness beer and Italian food. We had wine at our table. 

After lunch some of us went with Alice, our guide, to visit an archeological museum. I think we all expected a place with cases of statues, pottery and glass objects. Instead, we were brought to a house that had originally been bought to be remodeled into a restaurant. The family who had lived in the house , complained about it being cold and damp. When the owners broke through the floor and walls looking for perhaps a broken pipe, they found some very ancient artifacts, cisterns, passageways and deep holes. The man who bought the property had an interest in archeology. So he and his sons spent about 7 years uncovering the past. In Italy all ancient artifacts belong to the state. Once it became clear that the family was uncovering pieces from antiquity, an archaeologist was assigned to supervise the work. The house became a museum allowing the family to show off their structural work. The project was featured on the front page of the New York Times when a New Yorker came to Lecce and was captivated by the space. It was fun to climb down into the cistern and see a connection to what was probably an escape route. The son who greeted us became very involved in our visit. He showed us the next house that his father had acquired to continue the work of excavating. He told us that the Americans had invited them to lecture about the project at the Italian American museum in Little Italy in NYC. That requires a visit! 

We returned to our beautiful B&B to relax before dinner. A few of us walked back into town to a restaurant that had a wide range of delicious choices. We have eaten well. 
Tomorrow we travel out to a winery and a town along the Adriatic. Time to sleep now.