It seems that I am eating all the time in Lecce, which I find makes it appropriate to use this simile: Lecce is like the pastry flakes of a sfogliatella. There isn’t one thing in the city where you can say, “This is Lecce.” It is layer upon layer of history, culture and experiences that, when someone asks you, “What do you love most about Lecce?” you find yourself quite tongue tied looking for a straight answer.
The city is beautiful. So beautiful that it is affectionately nicknamed ‘the Florence of the South’ as well as ‘Lady of Baroque’, after the stunning baroque architecture that seems to define the city. But delve a little deeper into Lecce (literally, below ground level) and you’ll find Roman remains and even older geological treasures that surface right before your eyes.
On a day trip organised by Palazzo Ducale Venturi, a luxury hotel thirty minutes’ drive from Lecce, I got to peel back the layers one by one, until the moment when I realised that, just like the it is in fact, the whole of
