Lecce

 17,000 steps

Started this morning with finishing visiting the 3 churches from the pass we bought yesterday that we did not see yesterday. You can only visit so many churches in one day lol. Started off at Basilica Santa Croce, a church that was built to hold a piece of Jesus cross. Once again amazing architecture.

Next church was Church of Santa Chiara. This church is very unique as the ceiling is made of paper mache, a craft that was very popular in this city. We heard that the church is closed quite frequently for an investigation of the paper mache to make sure it is holding up, it is from the 1600's. It really looks like wood. 3^rd and final church was San Matteo. This one had sandstone statues of the apostles. Lots of blue in this church as well, which we hadn't seen a lot of. Most churches right now have some things covered in black cloth, we think this is because Easter is coming.

After our church visits we just explored town a bit more. Went outside of the old town a bit and found the Apollo Theatre which was closed for many years and reopened a few years ago when it was purchased and renovated by the city. We see there is a Jazz performer there tonight, will look into that further later. Also saw what looks like a place you fill up bottles of wine, something our friends Jacques and Rollande will investigate further I am sure if they make it this way.

We came across the 3^rd entrance gate to the city called Porta San Biagio, another beautiful gate. There were 4 gates to the old city, but unfortunately this 4^th gate was destroyed as well as much of the wall around the city many years ago.

We also found the roman theatre by chance. We saw a bathroom sign and surprise there was a little window view of the roman theatre, totally needing some TLC, it is closed to visitors right now. The amphitheatre outside our apartment is also closed to visitors right now, I feel bad for anyone coming here that wanted to see some Roman architecture.

Picked up some things for lunch and supper back at the apartment for today and then time for a little rest up before our walking tour, which happens!

We had a great nearly 2 hour free walking tour this afternoon. There were about 15 of us, perfect size. There really aren't too many tourists around, most of them seem to be Italian school groups. Lecce is known as the “Florence of the South”. Florence is renaissance, Lecce is Baroque, very different. The “Florence of the South” tag is really a marketing gimmick, it was called this to try to get more tourists to come and visit Lecce, on the grand tour of Europe they just weren't coming this way, and by calling it the Florence of the South it was to attract more visitors.

Another little story we found out is Porta Rudiae has a statue of Saint Oronzo, the patron saint of Lecce. He has no face right now, last year it was hit by lightning. Saint Oronzo was made the patron saint of Lecce as during the plague in the 1600's he was attributed to ending the plague by having everyone pray. So, when the lightning struck his face it was a really bad omen some felt in Lecce, it is going to be repaired this year we were told.

After the tour we headed back to the apartment for supper and to buy tickets for tonight concert. I am using a esim card with no phone number, so a real pain to get my purchase validated. Ended up calling Brian and putting his phone number in the get a validation code, that sorted. Good to talk to Brian anyway as we have now arranged airport pickup and Easter dinner for next week, looking forward to seeing everyone, it has been a while.

Concert tonight is at 8:45PM, not a good time to start for me. Jany McPherson has quite a summary of Jazz festivals on her resume. She was with a bass player and a drummer. It was very entertaining, all her own music. She had us all singing along at one point. Too bad we couldn't understand her talking between songs. She grew up in Cuba, now lives in France. For sure she speaks Spanish, French, and Italian. She sang in all these 3 languages as well as English. We had booked balcony seats, wow I wish our cultural shows were priced at home like they are in Europe. Only about 3/4 of the Apollo Theatre was full, too bad as it really was good.

A strange clock on one of the building in the main square

Basilica Santa Croce

So much things to look at

The courtyard of the ex convent of Celestini now a govt building

Unique trees, smelled wonderful

Church of Sainte Clare

600 year old papier mache ceiling

A few shops in town still do papier mache.

San Matteo, they did not finish so they would not have to pay taxes we were told. Missing the statues

Very in interesting.

Busker with a mobile piano

Porta San Biagio

So many mansion with beautiful courtyard that you can sometimes see if the doors are open

Roman Theater, needs some TLC

Some of the local food names PUCCE was popular

The call this one the traveling statue as it had been to many locations

Wendy wish this would have been our rental car

The view from our balcony

H1gh school band

Heels and Bikes?

We were told they had balconies to watch the processions, One way to show the superiority over the local people

Most building are made of limestone which sometimes are fossils

A Romeo and Juliette story. She killed herself after the parent closed off her balcony so she could not see Romeo of his balcony across the street.  A small figure head of her is on ethe building corner,

A fancy hotel

Limestone wears out easily

Saint Oraozo bronze statue before botox

After Botox but too high to see it anyway

Our 15 feet plus ceiling, used to be someone's mansion now many apartments

A snack with pistachio cream filling from downstairs pastry shop.

The Apollo theater where we saw Jani McPherson trio