Lecce

Lecce sits inland, about 12km from the Adriatic, and the nearest beaches at San Cataldo and Torre Chianca are plain stretches of sand used mostly by locals. The Salento coast is the real draw. About half an hour south are the pale coves and sea stacks of Torre dell'Orso and Torre Sant'Andrea. On the Ionian side, about 40 minutes west, Porto Cesareo and Punta Prosciutto have long, shallow beaches of fine sand and very clear water.

In July and August the sea reaches about 25°C and swimming lasts from June well into October. In summer, beach life shapes the whole stay: mornings by the water, evenings back in town. You need a car or the seasonal buses to get there, and the most famous beaches are crowded in August.

Lecce eats in a way all its own. Breakfast is a warm pasticciotto, a custard-filled pastry, with caffè in ghiaccio, iced espresso sweetened with almond milk. Mid-morning brings the rustico, a puff pastry of béchamel and tomato. Trattorias serve ciceri e tria, a dish of chickpeas with fried and boiled pasta, orecchiette with turnip tops, fava bean purée with wild chicory, and pittule, fried dough balls. Dinner comes with the dark Negroamaro and Primitivo wines of the surrounding plain.

The cooking is peasant food made with care, and eating well costs little in simple osterie in the old town. What the city lacks is range: there is little beyond Apulian food and only a small tier of ambitious restaurants.

Lecce's old town is one of Italy's most complete Baroque townscapes. It is carved in the soft, honey-coloured local limestone, which let seventeenth-century masons cover facades with fruit, beasts and cherubs. The Basilica di Santa Croce is the showpiece. The enclosed Piazza del Duomo, with its cathedral, bell tower and seminary, is at its best at dusk. Below Piazza Sant'Oronzo lies half of a Roman amphitheatre, and there is a small Roman theatre nearby.

Along with the Castle of Charles V, the city gates and dozens of churches, there are underground Messapian and Roman layers to explore beneath a private house in the old town. The Museo Castromediano holds the regional archaeology. Museums are modest, and the centre's appeal lies in walking its streets rather than ticking off sights.

Evenings in Lecce begin with the passeggiata and an aperitivo on the piazzas, then move into the wine bars and small cocktail bars of the old town's lanes. Students keep things going late on weekends for much of the year. Dancing is limited in the city itself. In summer the late scene moves to beach clubs and open-air discos along the coast, especially around Gallipoli, which means a drive. Expect a pleasant, sociable night out rather than a reason to come.

The land around Lecce is a flat plain of olive groves, dry-stone walls and red earth, good for easy cycling but with no hills. The coast is the outdoors. To the south-east, cliffs, sea stacks and inlets run from Roca Vecchia past Otranto towards Santa Maria di Leuca, with clifftop paths and boat trips into sea caves. Le Cesine and the Alimini lakes are coastal wetlands for birdwatching, and Porto Selvaggio on the Ionian side has pine woods above a rocky bay. Kayaking, snorkelling and diving are good, and spring and autumn suit walking far better than the hot summer.

Lecce is the natural base for the Salento and much of southern Apulia. About 45 minutes away is Otranto, with its walled old town and a vast twelfth-century floor mosaic in the cathedral. Gallipoli's old town stands on an island in the Ionian. Closer in, Galatina has the frescoed basilica of Santa Caterina, and Nardò and Specchia are handsome stone towns.

To the north, white Ostuni is about an hour away. Alberobello's trulli, Martina Franca and the Itria valley are under two hours by car. Taranto has an outstanding museum of Greek antiquities. Trains reach Brindisi and Bari easily, but most of these trips are far simpler with a car.

Lecce is easy-going with children. The old town is largely free of traffic, evenings on the piazzas are full of families, and gelato is never far away. The shallow, sandy beaches around Porto Cesareo suit small children well. There is little made for them, though: no zoo, aquarium or theme park of note. The midday heat in July and August means building the day around the beach and a long afternoon rest.

Everything in the historic centre is within a short walk, along flat, partly pedestrian streets. The station is at the edge of the old town, and fast trains run north to Brindisi and Bari. Beyond the city it gets harder. Local railways across the Salento are slow and infrequent, and the beach buses run only in summer. Most visitors hire a car to reach the coast and the smaller towns. Driving into the old town is restricted, so park outside the walls.

Lecce's craft is cartapesta, papier-mâché figures of saints and nativity scenes made in workshops in the old town. Small objects carved from the local limestone and ceramics from nearby Grottaglie are the other local things worth bringing home. The rest is a handful of fashion shops on the main streets, food shops selling olive oil, wine and taralli, and a lot of souvenirs. It is pleasant browsing, not a shopping trip.

Lecce is good value for Italy. Street pastries, simple trattorias and local wine cost little, and the bed and breakfasts in old palazzi are fairly priced for most of the year. The exception is high summer. In August the whole Salento fills with Italian vacationers, rooms and beach-club loungers become expensive, and a hire car adds to the bill. May, June and September give the best balance of weather and price.

The Teatro Politeama Greco and the historic Teatro Paisiello carry a modest season of opera, concerts and prose theatre. The more distinctive live tradition is pizzica, the fast, hypnotic tambourine dance of the Salento. You hear it at village festivals all summer, and it peaks in August at the Notte della Taranta in nearby Melpignano, a huge open-air night of music. Outside summer, there is less to choose from.

Lecce has no bathing tradition of its own, but the southern rhythm is restful in itself. Shops close for the long afternoon rest, and evenings are spent sitting in the piazzas. For taking the waters, the sulphur springs of Santa Cesarea Terme are under an hour away, in grottoes and pools on the cliffs above the sea. Several country masserie, the old fortified farmhouses of the surrounding plain, have been turned into quiet retreats with spas.