Martina Franca to Otranto…..and the heel of Italy

October 23 rd

Today we are heading to the heel of Italy, Otranto some 150kms south of Martina Franca is our destination. A warm and sunny day, our intent is to stop en route, in Lecce, as our AIRBNB check-in is not till mid-afternoon.

Lecce’s history goes back a long way – you can still see some stunning Roman ruins of an amphitheater (below)… 

and theatre (both were closed due to ongoing restoration) but nevertheless, we could get a reasonably close look at them:

…however, the period responsible for its current popularity was the 17th century. A period of prosperity that led to grand developments and the wholesale construction of palaces and churches. These buildings adapted the fashionable Baroque style to the soft local stone, with rather extravagant decorations depicting gargoyles, asparagus columns, cavorting gremlins, and my favorite, cherubs, covering facades and doorways… below the Basilica of Santa Croce

Piazza del Duomo

Piazza Sant’Oronzo

and so many other wonderful buildings… a few more pictures > click to enlarge images

It was a lovely day with everyone enjoying this very pleasant town….being committed to staying in Otranto it was time to move on, but it would have been nice to spend a few days here. On our way out I noticed some folks having a problem with the parking ticket machine and as they were speaking Polish I did my good deed for the day by explaining the workings of this creature.

After another hour of driving, we reached Otranto a rather small town of 6,000 inhabitants, our home for the next few days. Geeps was rather good at leading us to the apartment located on a rather modest-looking street. We met our host, actually, her father who spoke not a word of Inglesse but was probably the best-organized host yet…checklist in hand he went over everything in the apartment with him dictating into a smartphone and then showing us the English translation…very pleasant fellow and everything was made clear including the mechanics of the garage opener.

Afterward, we headed down to the seafront, as our area looked pretty dead…turned the corner and wow, it seemed like everyone in the town was out and about..passeggiata:

 

and given where we were, a seafood dinner was not to be missed …