Lecce after Dark

From Our "Roof" Terrace

Our apartment is nice and quiet, and our terrace looks out on the pleasant vine covered courtyard, so it hardly looks like we are in the middle of the city. It is quiet and other than the owner's daughter who's vocalizations seem to travel everywhere, or the ever present church bells we do not hear much, and who can complain about church bells and children?

Once you open the small door in the two big green courtyard doors, you enter another world. You emerge into the middle of a busy city with crowds of people. During the day it is busy, but go out after dark and it is even worse. You open the door and often have to wait for a break in the crowd to step out.

The Square at Night

Out on the Town

Lecce is a vibrant city at night. When you walk the streets at night you see a whole other world. There are shops, bars, restaurants, and special events you never knew were there. As with many World Heritage Sites, buildings must retain their historical structure and look, so if you want to open a store selling Lecce's Arts and Crafts, a trendy wine bar, or a popular restaurant, you must design it into the ancient original buildings. As a result, signs, displays and windows are often inside once your shutters are closed, and there is no visual evidence your establishment even exists. Many of these shops just do not open during the day, because they realize way more people are out in the evening, no one is around between 2:00 & 4:00, so they wait until 5:00 to open for the day and make their livings after dark.

We found numerous one-time art shows, odd second hand shops, jewelry shops where the owners were making the jewelry right there, pottery shops where the paints and finishes were in jars in a corner, funky restaurants, and hidden wine bars. There was always something new to discover as we wandered the narrow streets  after dark in the yellow glow of ancient street lamps.

Lecce After Dark

Italian Driving

Is there really room for cars and people

I have often heard that Italian drivers are the worst in the world, or at least Italy was the one place you should never drive. Well I joined the ranks of Italian drivers and ventured out on the Italian roadways to see just how bad it was.

Now I pride myself with being able to drive almost anything anywhere, but I must admit that I was very nervous about this road trip. The apartment complex also rents cars, motorcycles and bicycles, so we rented a Fiat Panda for two days. The Fiat Panda must be the most inexpensive car in Italy. It has a tiny engine, very basic seating and NO options, no cruise and no navigation system. It does however do everything and seats four in relative comfort – it gets you from here to there and hopefully back again. The car I was renting was parked inside the courtyard, and I was told my way out of the old city was to turn right out of the big green doors and then take the first right straight out of the city. That sounds fine, but these big green doors were designed for horses and carriages. The day we arrived I watched a big Audi sedan go out and he had to drive over the two little semi circles on either side of the door, and I had visions of trying to turn right and hitting either the bench beside the Gelato shop next door, or the vending machines across the street at the lottery shop, and I had seen cars trying to navigate these streets . . .

The Ideal car for lecce

Fortunately we were leaving at 7:00 am, and the streets would be relatively free of pedestrians at that hour, and I made it out the doors and into the streets. Without so many people and other vehicles I made it out of the narrow old city streets and around two round-a-bouts to the highway out of town. The day was off to a positive start.

The Italian highways are actually very good, with excellent signage and clearly marked speed limits. However I discovered that those clearly marked speed limits are not exactly what I am used to. Apparently the speed limit is 130 km per hour, but this is not marked anywhere; what is marked is when they think you might want to slow down for corners, construction or tunnels. I reasoned that these limits must be optional, because no one seemed to pay them any attention. The traffic on the highways was usually pretty good with little congestion, and passing slower traffic easy. You just had to watch for those big Audi, BMW or Mercedes, which seemed to be allowed to drive at any speed they wished, and overtook my little Fiat Panda at breathtaking rates. I was warned that speed is monitored via cameras on the overpasses, and there were signs warning drivers of this electronic monitoring, but most drivers seemed little concerned with this threat, and I cannot imagine those left lane sedans were going at 130.

Seriously? Drive out through here?

Turn Right down here . . .

Part of the reason for this road trip was to drive the Amalfi coastal roads. I had seen pictures and heard about them, but was not really prepared for these roads. I had driven narrow roads in England and had practice bouncing rental cars off the curbs, but here there are no curbs or ditches; the roads are bordered by solid rock face on one side and two foot stone safety walls on the cliff side. They seem to paint white lines down the middle some of the time, and after a while we decided that this was where there was actually close to two actual lanes. Most of the time however there was no markings on the road, but plenty of scrapes on the stone walls and cliff faces. Combine this with roads built on cliff faces and constantly twisting back and forth and around blind corners. Then you have to share these roads with huge tour buses and crazy scooter drivers. The tour buses of course have to drive carefully, but the scooters drive like there is nothing else on the road. They pass whenever they like and just expect to be able to dodge oncoming traffic. Fortunately no one except them drive really crazy – there just is not room between switchbacks to get up to any speed.

Driving Amalfi

At one point I was in a line of traffic following a tour bus. The bus driver saw another bus coming and realized there was not room for them to pass, so he pulled in close to the wall to let the other bus pass. The first four cars in line behind the bus immediately pulled out and took the opportunity to pass the bus. There was room for two to get in; the other two forced the oncoming bus to slow to avoid hitting them. Of course there were not scooters in the line; they had already roared past earlier.

That's a long way down . . .

Although it would have been fun to be driving this road on a nice red Ducati 999, I was actually glad to be in the little Panda which gave me a couple of inches to spare passing other vehicles. At one point, I had to creep past a bus with barely an inch or two between the bus and my side mirror. No wonder so many cars have their side mirrors missing or taped on.

All in all this was a thrilling drive that I loved and will always remember as one of the greatest roads I have driven.

Now the Amalfi would be more fun on this 

Then there was Naples . . . . we had to drop the boys off at the Naples Train Station and then get out of the city to get back to Lecce. Everything bad about Italian drivers is represented in driving downtown Naples. The roads are four decent lanes wide but the curbside lanes are all taken with parked cars regardless of the signs. If there isn’t a parking spot, double parking is common. That leaves almost two actual lanes for traffic, but there is usually at least four lanes of vehicles trying to get somewhere. The lines on the streets indicating lanes are completely ignored. Then there are the scooters who literally scoot between lanes and switching lanes to and fro at will. You cannot hesitate or someone will take your spot, and I quickly got into the Italian attitude and forced my way where I wanted to go, and we got out of the city and back on the highway.

All in all I did pretty well and the Panda got returned with only dead bugs ruining its pristine finish.

Broken Sewer

At the Museum

Tiles Under the Bench

What do you do when everything goes wrong with your dream of opening a restaurant? That is what happened with the family who owns the Museo Archeologico Faggiano. They bought a nice old building in Lecce that they got for a good price because it needed plumbing work. No problem they were renovating anyway . . .Well it turned out that the problems went right back to the actual sewer pipe going to the city sewer. Only problem was they could not find the pipe, so a major digging project was undertaken in the basement. The search for the elusive sewer pipe ended up excavating the entire basement and WAY more. In the process they also uncovered 1000 years of history buried under their house. Under their “bargain” building was a series of natural caves and tunnels containing pottery and artifacts from all the way back to before there was a city here. As well these caves had been used as burial sites.

The dream of a popular Italian restaurant was forgotten and the house became a major archeological site. The family turned their building into a museum open to the public. Many of the major finds such as Greek urns and pottery went to the Provincial museum in Lecce (We went their first actually), and the house was converted so that visitors could explore the various levels of the caves and dig sites.

Going Down . .

This is a private museum, so you do not have wide stairways and fancy displays. Here you climb down rickety stairs to tiny underground caves. The spaces under the house go over two stories down, so you climb way down underground to see the caves used as burial sites 1000 years ago. As you climb down you see how the caves were buried and houses built on top. Underground caves had been turned into cisterns for water storage, but I doubt they even knew that under there were buried long dead Greeks and Romans.

Climbing Up

Then once you came back to the surface you could climb up to the rooftop and tower to look out over the current city of Lecce, and explore the original house with antique furnishings and original building structure. All through the house were pieces of pottery embedded in the plaster and walls, but I suspect this was more for effect than actual historical accurate building methods.

Some Historical Bottles?

As we entered the museum we were met by a little old lady who took our money and directed us to the numbered displays and gave us a pretty good English guide paper. Although she spoke no English she managed to reassure us that we could walk on the glass floor panels revealing the subterranean caves and excavations, and she insured we were following the correct order of displays. Me, who tends to wander on my own as I see things that interest me, was herded back on track a couple of times. Unlike the attendant at the “Provincial” museum where I felt under constant watch, here Grama was only being helpful.

Oh, by the way, the washroom worked fine, so I guess they did finally sort of that plumbing and sewer issue.

Crosswalks

"STOP" what do you mean I have to stop?

Back home in Halifax, crosswalks are always a big news item. There is usually some report of someone getting hit in a crosswalk, and demands for better enforcement and stronger laws governing crosswalks.

I have a suggestion. Come spend some time in Italy and learn how to cross the street using crosswalks. We have been here for two weeks now and although I am constantly amazed at how aggressive the drivers are, I have yet to see an accident . I think the land of Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia, Alfa and Lamborghini not only produces fast cars it also gets in the blood of its drivers. I sat out if front of the apartment complex enjoying a lemon sherbet the other night and watched a guy navigate his beautiful Honda Super Sport 400 (A nice old classic Honda for those not motorcycle people) through the busy single lane street. He whipped around pedestrians, bicycles and cars with ease, never taking his feet off the pegs. Texting while driving is common, but it is done on streets where pedestrians need to pull themselves into the walls to avoid finding how much it takes to fold those side mirrors in. Sidewalks, crosswalks, not likely!

Why can't I park here?

Now major streets when you get out of the old inner city do have sidewalks and crosswalks. Really big intersections even have "walk/don’t walk" signs. However the warning signs only apply when there is heavy traffic. If there is a break in traffic pedestrians just cross regardless of the light. Most crosswalks are just your standard zebra striped lane across the road. They take a particular skill to actually get across the street.

Do not even think about standing politely on the sidewalk and look like you want to cross the street – the drivers do not even see you, or if they do they seem to actually accelerate just in case you might be thinking of crossing. You have to step into the street and stare the drivers down. Then they will stop. However if one car stops, the ones following immediately pull out to pass them, so this stare them down and make them stop has to be repeated for each lane to be crossed. And don’t expect them to wait until you are actually across; no, they calculate to inches, your progress, the width of the car and then accelerate around you in case someone else might try to cross the street. 

Excuse me I need this piece of road !

Now the interesting thing is that I have yet to see an accident. I am constantly amazed that the bicycles, cars, scooters and even delivery trucks careening through the crowds do not hit anyone, but they always seem to make it without incident. The cars do seem to be missing a lot of side mirrors and there are a lot of scratches and dents in cars, but when it seems inevitable that someone would get hit, everything works. I think the secret is that the cars do watch out for things, and the pedestrians realize that drivers are crazy and treat them as such. People do not walk blindly into a crosswalk expecting the cars to stop, they make the drivers stop, and forcibly assert their right to cross the street. The drivers know they have to let pedestrians cross at crosswalks, would rather not have to let them, but watch and allow them to cross when they are forced to. Back home I have seen drivers blindly drive through a crosswalk without ever noticing people wanting to cross, but here, when you aggressively show your intention to cross, the cars do stop and let me across. The drivers may be crazy, but I have learned to respect their actual skill. I think you have to be a good driver if you are going to navigate the streets of Italy.

The Wedding Cake Town

Wedding Cake?

This area of Italy is mostly flat, and any lumps or hills were ideal locations to settle, because it allowed you to see the invading Turks in time to run and hide. This problem with the Turks seems to have been a constant one through history, and it is said that although the local dialects are so distinct that people from one town could not understand the "Italian" spoken in another, the one common expression was "The Turks are coming!".

View From Ostuni

Shop in Ostuni

One town that took advantage of a hilltop location was Ostuni, and this town completely covers a round hill sticking up out of an otherwise flat landscape.

Once the problem of constantly invading Turks was resolved (I am sorry, but I do not know the history of this; I'm on vacation not research), the town decided to enhance their favourable position on top of a hill and visible from miles, and they painted the town white. Literately, almost the entire town is painted gleaming white. Driving towards Ostuni, you can see the white dome of the hill for miles, and it really does look like a Wedding Cake. From a distance with the buildings all built so close together, it looks like the entire top of the hill is one white dome of white frosting. This decision to paint the town, has created an upkeep problem however, and during our visit to Ostuni, I saw three men busy with large buckets of white paint.

Ostuni Church

Pass on the Left?

Once you get to the town, you must climb up twisting narrow streets to get the top, where the church sits. Unlike most towns where the church sits proudly dominating the town square, here the square is part way up the hill, and the church sits at the top very tightly surrounded by other houses, probably the rich and powerful who felt being in close proximity to God and church for protection from the Turks was more important than being on the town square.

Ostuni Street

The narrow streets that wind and twist up the hill make driving interesting in Ostuni. Here in Lecce the streets are narrow, but someone had the sense to make most one-way, and many are straight, so even if the street is two way, you can see oncoming vehicles and take action, but in Ostuni, I saw repeated incidents of vehicles coming around a tight corner to find someone coming the other way, causing someone to have to reverse to a wider section. No wonder Smarts, motorized trikes and scooters are the practical choice for many.

Strange, I did not see any wedding shops in the town; you would think that would be a natural fit.