Going slow in Lecce

We've had some lovely warm days in Italy on this trip, none so warm as today in Lecce. After a very Italian style breakfast in our apartment, we sat outside on the terrace for a while to plan our day. At 8am it was already 23 degrees and as Shannon discovered via his weather app - humidity 94%. Oh, you can imagine the joy of instant sweat when you step outside! So we took it slow in the morning, first attending to our laundry at a laundromat close by. Unlike previous trips, we have not come across any issues trying to access the laundromat facilities this time! The operators we came across this morning were very helpful. We then headed back to our apartment via the supermarket to get some supplies for the next few days, including dinner for tonight. Because we stay in apartments, we split our dinners between enjoying restaurants and preparing basic meals like pasta, or cold meats and salad. We also knew we'd be hot and bothered and could do with some time in air-conditioned comfort.

When we returned, we sorted out the laundry, paused for a coffee then tended to emails to finalise the sale of our house in Curlewis. For any of you not on facebook and who missed my post, yes, we have sold our house after two and a half weeks on the market. Being overseas adds a layer of complication perhaps, but our agent has been great at communicating everything to us. So, final emails were sent to our agent and conveyancer, to ensure everything was finalised. We headed out into the heat to explore the old town during daylight. We were in awe at the beautiful frescoes, baroque-style buildings, ancient ruins and the towns many, many churches.

I can't tell you how many churches we went into today. Some were beautiful, some basic, but all were a nice, brief escape from the heat. The most impressive churches had beautiful altars, stained glass windows and carved religious figure statues.

We explored laneways and little shops selling brightly coloured ceramics and papier-mache figures. Lecce is the birthplace of papier-mache and there are many artisans who have kept the art alive. Compared to other places we have visited this trip, Lecce is very clean and very quiet. The locals aren't exactly friendly, quite serious and a little abrupt. This attitude is certainly not what we are used to from Italians, who are warm, inviting and interested. After wandering for some time and getting rather hot and bothered, we somehow stumbled upon an Irish pub, at the perfect time. It reminded us a little of the Irish pubs at home, just 'Italianised'. We enjoyed an ice-cold local beer at the bar, then enjoyed our second drink in the bistro with our lunch - burgers and fries. The burgers were very tasty, considering our expectations weren't that high, we were pleased we decided to stay for lunch.

With the temperature and the humidity still high, we returned to our apartment to enjoy the air conditioning and planned our day trip for tomorrow, to the southernmost tip of the country.