Southern Italians, we are famous for not planning enough! We say we enjoy life (non-Southern Italians say…we are lazy!). Of course I support the first interpretation…..
I think it’s great to take it easy when you come to Lecce and Puglia. Where else can you have such a wonderful opportunity to walk around an historical center which is just an outdoor museum?!
The historical center is just amazing with all his baroque style and architecture. You enter into a very narrow street, you think you are about to get lost……and suddenly you have this beautifully decorated Santa Croce Cathedral. You can only stare at it. You try to take pictures, but the street is too narrow, you just can’t take a full size picture!
You walk along the main Vittorio Emanuele street and you are just astonished by all the beautiful palaces with their handcrafted balconies, reproducing angels, lions, horses etc.
At night, you cross the main Sant’Oronzo square and suddenly you find a Roman amphitheatre (a much smaller version of the Colosseum in Rome!) where a dance ballet company is performing.
However, the best thing I usually suggest to my friends, is to mingle with the locals and live like the local Leccese people do……at least for one day! I promise you start with one day and then… you get addicted! (it’s worst than chocolate!). I have some friends who moved to Puglia from the US and the UK and are now so well accustomed to the Leccese way of life……!!
So how do people from Lecce spend their regular day?
The day starts at about 9:00am (in Lecce when we say 9, we actually mean 9:30). Of course we first need to read the news (i.e. weather forecast, horoscope, Lecce soccer team, night events). So we go to the bar in the main Santo Oronzo square for an “Espressino” and “Pasticciotto”: nobody who is a true Leccese would order anything different than this….I think it’s a breakfast written in our DNA. Espressino, which literally means little espresso, is actually a sort of espresso macchiato, served in a small glass coffee cup: 1 shot of coffee, with milk foam and bitter cocoa powder on top. Pasticciotto is a pastry filled with lemon cream that is one of the most typical pastries from Lecce (you don’t find it anywhere else in Puglia!).
Then, it’s time to work!! You ride your bike or vespa to the office, check you emails, Facebook and Twitter and then ….serious and hard work. After about two hours, the clock tower announces it’s already Mezzogiorno (Midday), time for the pre-lunch aperitif!
So you take your vespa or bike again and go to another bar (Raphael bar, near Mazzini Square) where you have an aperitif based on: rustico and crodino. Rustico is a salty pastry filled with mozzarella, béchamel and tomato sauce. You can only eat it in Lecce!
You meet your friends, check what they are doing at night and then back home for lunch with your family.
You may stop for some food shopping first or may be to buy some spring flowers at the beautiful market behind the big Castle.
Lunch time is from 1 to 4-5pm (it depends!), which of course includes the siesta. Yes, it depends because some shops open at 5.30 pm. Going back home for lunch and having a siesta is a religion which is respected more than anything else. If you walk in the streets at that time of the day you don’t find one single person. If you don’t know about the siesta, you may think Lecce is a desert town….but then at 5 (I mean ….at 5.30) life goes back again. People fill the streets, walking in a hurry to go back to work!
Well, in the afternoon a typical Leccese works until 8.30pm (yes, we do work long hours!)….then gym, shower and ready for the Leccese movida: pizza at 10.30pm and then a drink at the piazzetta behind the Duomo Cathedral. The night life goes on until 2am!….
I know life is too hard!
Let me know if you and your wife come to Puglia. Coming in the spring is the perfect timing…starting from april you can even go to the beach and swim (the Mediterranean sea is normally much warmer than the ocean)….and of course go to the seaside restaurants and eat raw sea urchins, raw shrimps, raw oysters…(I love raw fish!)….
Indeed :) I’m lucky enough to be in a position where we get to travel frequently. Last year we spent 10 days in Italy (all over the place, though 3 days were in Rome, and I have to say…I LOVE ITALY!), another 10 days on the coast of Turkey, a ski trip up in the mountains here in Bulgaria, and a couple of trips to Macedonia and one to Greece. This year we had a weekend trip to Bansko, which is a ski resort town (wife actually went in January too but I skipped that one to stay home and work), and we are debating going on the family trip to Meteora, Greece at the first of May. I think there’s a cruise scheduled this summer as well, but I just sort of nod my head and go along, because it’s my wife’s family who schedules all the vacations. I’m just lucky enough to tag along!
I’ve really loved the time I’ve spent in Greece and Italy, and I know my wife and I are hoping to get to head back to Italy next spring for a two week vacation. I have to admit, the pictures and experiences I’m reading about from your area of Italy has both of us thinking that perhaps a large portion of that time needs to be spent in what sounds like the best part of the country!
Buongiorno Tim!
thank you for your post.
After being away for 15 years, it took me a while to get adjusted to this lifestyle when I moved back from the US and London. I personally think the right answer is always in the middle: living in Italy and at the same time traveling to visit my friends, to learn about other cuisine, wines and cultures is the perfect way to enjoy my life…I just wish I was able to travel more often than I do…but it’s never enough!
I subscribe to this way of living as often as possible :)
It’s slightly different here in Bulgaria, but in any case, it took a bit of getting used to having come from the US. Everyone in the States is always “rush rush rush go go go now now now” and the Mediterranean way of life is more of a relaxed, take-life-as-it-comes-at-you pace, enjoying the little things, stressing as little as possible, and just LIVING!
Great post :)