Lecce is not a city you eat expensively in. Three things define it, and all three cost almost nothing: a pastry, a savoury one, and a coffee poured over ice. What makes them worth writing about is not the price,…
Archives for August 2026
The Best Photo Spots in Lecce
Most guides to photographing Lecce hand you a list of addresses. The addresses are not the difficult part. The old town is small, the best facades sit within a few streets of one another, and you will walk into them…
Where to Stay in Lecce
The accommodation decision in Lecce comes down to two questions, and neither is really about the hotel. Whether you sleep inside the old walls or outside them, and what you intend to do with a car. The second sounds like…
A Lecce Itinerary: 2 to 3 Days
Lecce is small enough that you could walk past every headline sight in one morning, and hot enough that trying to do so in July would spoil the trip. In high summer the highs sit around 31 to 34C, the…
The Best Things to Do in Lecce
Nothing on this list needs a car, and nothing needs a booking made weeks ahead. The old town is walkable end to end and most of what you have come for sits within a few streets of the main square,…
The Baroque of Lecce
The usual way to explain a city like this is to reach for patrons and architects and a century of ambition. Lecce has all of that, and none of it is the real answer. The real answer is under your…
The Complete Guide to Lecce
Lecce is a long way down. It sits in the heel of Italy, in the Salento, past the point where most itineraries have already turned around and gone home, and the effort of getting there is the first thing anyone…
Ischia, Where the Water Comes Up Hot
Somebody at dinner told me to go at six, and to go alone, and not to bring a towel I was fond of. I did all three. The road ends above Panza. After that there is a sign, and after…
Sorrento – Last Days of Summer
In August the town does not empty out. It fills. I had it the wrong way round in my head. I thought the middle of the month would hollow the place out, everyone gone elsewhere, shutters down. It is the…
Ostuni, and the Colour of the Walls
You see it from a long way off. That is the first thing about Ostuni and it does not stop being the thing. The road comes across a plain of olive trees, flat and silver and going on much further…
The Best Beaches near Ostuni
The first thing to say, because a surprising number of people book Ostuni without knowing it: the town is not on the sea. Ostuni sits on a hill roughly seven to eight kilometres inland, looking down over an olive plain…
The Best Photo Spots in Ostuni
Ostuni is one of the easier places in Italy to photograph and one of the harder ones to photograph well, and the reason is the same in both cases: it is entirely white. A whitewashed town is enormously forgiving of…
