We spent Saturday afternoon visiting Lecce, a town about 38 km from Brindisi. The old town here is known for it's baroque architecture and some of the churches and the adornment on the walls was 'extravagant'.



One of the old city gates in Leccee

We spent a few hours wandering the streets and glancing into churches and attractive piazzas and courtyards. It was worth the visit but outside of the old town itself the place was rather tatty and strewn with graffiti. We managed to find a large 'Auchan' (a French supermarket chain) on the way back so did some stocking up on heavier items whilst we had transport.



The central piazza of Lecce with the exposed ruins of a Roman Amphitheatre

Sundays trip involved visiting three inland towns, firstly Ostuni which is a pretty place, built mostly on a hill and the older parts are whitewashed houses on cobblestoned sloping streets with small courtyards and alleys off to the side. It was moderately touristy but pleasant enough and we enjoyed walking about. We found a cafe/bar in a small courtyard and had a nice lunch of local cheese followed by very thinly cut grilled pork dressed with lemon juice supposedly accompanied by chips. The pork was good but Chris had eaten over half his before the chips managed to arrive. It was still a pleasant interlude.
Our next target was Alberobello, a town known for its original houses called Tulli's. These structures originated as agricultural storage buildings and their remains are still dotted about the landscape. The story goes that back in the 15th century a crafty landowner built a village of tulli's for his workers to live in as they were classed as farm buildings and therefore didn't attract any tax. The ruse apparently worked for a couple of centuries and the tulli's became a standard housing approach in the area. The original village has been extended and maintained and is an unusual sight with its round houses linked together and topped with pointed stone roofs.



A street in 'Tulli town'

It is however now mostly a tourist trap as many of the houses are now shops selling the normal tea-towels, sweets and fridge magnets. One, probably deaf, entrepreneur had taken to selling 'Clangers whistles' and the whole place was alive with children creating screeching noises with these wooden tubes. The place looks nice, has a great story but is not a place to linger in our view. It's also apparent that tulli property development is now big business as many have been turned into fancy guest apartments.



A modernised Tulli awaits its guests

We then moved on to Martina Franca, another town built of the slightly yellowy local stone and with narrow streets paved with the same stone, well polished by many feet. By now we were a bit 'toured out' and just had a quick walk through the main part of the older town. The stand-out building was the current town hall which is massive, built around a courtyard the four sides took about four centuries to complete as it passed from some aristocrats palace through military and church use to its current vocation as a rather tatty centre of local government.

Main Photo: A piazza in Ostuni