20 October 2023 - Brindisi and Lecce

There’s a F8 gale blowing out at sea so we wouldn’t be going anywhere on the boat today. It was a day for an inland sightseeing excursion, so we took the train to Lecce.

Lecce is known as the Florence of the south. It’s a laid back university city with 40 churches and at least as many palazzi (Steve claimed to be "churched out" by the end of the visit). Lecce’s baroque architecture has the craziest, most lavish decoration imaginable of the local sandstone. Most of the buildings were built or renovated in the 17th and 18th centuries, but some are pre-Roman. The duomo (cathedral) is 12th century. There is a Roman theatre and an amphitheatre.

The gate to the city of Lecce










The Roman Theatre



Close up of the intricate stone carving

The amphitheatre was only discovered in the 1930's, while digging foundations. There are roads and other buildings on top of the other parts of it.



 


An extra special treat was a visit to the private Museo Faggiano.

Faggiano Museum" is a private building opened to the public in April 2008. It houses historical-archaeological evidence from a time span of more than 2000 years, from Messapi (V century. B.C.) to Romans, from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The discovery of this place is quite incredible. Everything started almost by chance: in 2001 Mr. Luciano Faggiano bought the property with a plan to open a trattoria and live above. He was forced to break open the floor of the house in order to change the sewer pipes that were causing continuous problems of humidity. It was during this work that unexpectedly he began to discover the first archaeological evidences. It then continued with a long excavation work, lasting 7 years, made by Luciano and his three sons (Marco, Andrea and Davide) and financed entirely by Faggiano's family, under the supervision of the Archaeological Superintendence of Taranto. These excavation works rendered the house a real archaeological site, now available to all thanks to the Cultural Association "Idume", founded by Mr Faggiano.

From 1000 to 1200 this place was a  home for the Knights Templar, and later, up to 1600 it was a Convent of Franciscan Nuns of Saint Clare's order.

The excavation work brought to light hidden rooms, tombs, granary, cisterns, hypogeums, a well, templar frescos, ossuary, underground escape ways, more then 5000 archaelogical finds and other incredible things. 2500 years of history, all just in one house. Our guess is that under every other building there may be the same array of history, but the current inhabitants don't want their lives taken over by the process of discovery. 




Our day was rounded off with a superb dinner in Brindisi. The food here is just fabulous; to my mind, even better then Sicily.

Miles today               0  

Miles in 2023      1280

Tricia (and Steve) 

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