A strange town, promiscuously and haphazardly built up, enclosing a centre almost unparalleled for the beauty and exuberance of its Baroque, the finest flowering of the soft, pink-tinged Salentine stone which was clearly such a joy to work with. Among churches Santa Croce next door to the Palazzo del Governo, famous for its huge rose window, is the most ornate – some would say most frivolous. The duomo with a five-storey bell-tower and the bishop’s palace beside it lead the rest of the city’s churches and palaces in elegance and floridezza. If a little of this ‘Salentine Baroque’ goes a long way, confine yourself to the churches of Saints Niccolo & Cataldo and of Del Rosario.

Lecce’s main square, Piazza Sant’ Oronzo, is partly occupied by a Roman amphitheatre brought to light in the 1930s. Roman and pre-Roman finds from the excavations at Rudiae, 3 km south-west, are in the city’s Castro-mediano Museum, Viale Gallipoli.

The place is considered a cultural capital. You find many bookshops, a theatre, a (modern) Greek ‘little theatre’. The Chinese Missionary Museum on Via Monte San Michele must be unique in Italy. The permanent exhibition of provincial craftwork at Via Rubichi 21 has wrought-iron and wood sculptures but chiefly papier-mâché items, a line in which the leccesi have always excelled. You can buy display items at this exhibition. Antiques shops abound.

Among vineyards east of Squinzano, 16 km north-west off Route 16, the large abbey of Santa Maria di Cerrate contains the Salentine Crafts and Folk Traditions Museum, an expanding venture. Lecce’s night scene is livelier than average, with the floodlighting of buildings rating high among spectacles.