There's the smallest slice of moon hanging on the horizon as the sun goes down - I'm sitting on my terasa with the biggest expanse of Lecce skyline, littered with church bell-towers and tv aerials. I've just passed some graffiti in the street over from mine which says (in English) TV KILLS YOUR BRAIN. Lotalot of aerials..
I made it to my bike tour this morning - lovely mint green pavement cruiser - 5 of us headed off with Davide, to see what we could see. First stop was the duomo - which I had raced into at 9 this morning given the streets were silent, not a tour group in sight. This is the mother of all cathedrals, in a piazza which is only open at one side (unusual) - think sieges again (with escape routes and secret passages). It seems it was the jolly old Ottomans who made everyone shake in their boots.
This cathedral had the highest ceiling I have seen in a church - 30 meters in the central axis. No idea who keeps the cobwebs under control. Much darker than Chiesa San de Croce which is bathed in white. I was around pretty quickly and the ticket collector asked if I had seen the crypt - and before I could answer he was taking me there. Bit spooky, acknowledging that crypts are for bodies - there was one tunnel that one could take if one wanted - I edged in and decided I didn't want. It just felt a bit weird.
Next stop was one of the green lungs of the city (next to the cemetery and more crypts(!), but pleasant cycling - fig trees, persimmon trees - a look-out tower and one of those dry-wall rock things, which Davide explained is a pagghiaro, a cousin of the truilli houses.
Main purpose for the pagghiara was for storing food, (that lip around the base was good for drying tomatoes and beans) but was also a temporary shelter and home for workers rather than trekking home from the fields each night. And the dry wall was ideal because it could be dismantled relatively quickly if the tax man was on the way "nothing to see here, no, not a house" given that tax was payable for building a house. Seems avoiding tax is an international, inter-century, inter-civilisation thing.
We visited two of the three portos into the city (we talked about those yesterday I think) and then to the Roman Amphitheatre. He pointed out that an amphitheatre is usually a full circle and asked where we thought the other half was - obviously we were standing above it (duh). The deal was that Rome would more or less leave Lecce to its own devices on the basis that none of the churches were touched. You may remember the cute little church I visited yesterday - to excavate to expose the other half of the ampitheatre would undermine the church - so that is that - these cities are like lasagna, layer on layer.
Couple of extra things he explained (I'm a sucker for little details) - those iron things that I presumed were for tethering horses? Not so much - given the Lecce stone is very soft, these ground level protrusions were to stop the protrusions from carriages from gouging the buildings. En plus, on the corner of buildings there are sort of conical things, and those same things on the corners of garage entries - again, to stop damage to the buildings. Who Knew? (Davide did).
Lastly we stopped at the really elaborate Chiesa Santa de Croce where he showed us the sense of humour of the architects. When the facade of the building was nearly finished, the head priest suggested that given that his lot had funded the building of the church, he would like his name on it. The arrogance (thought the architects) so, if you look carefully at the line of angels in the photo here, you can see the angels holding sticks spelling out MATTEO - which wasn't what the priest guy wanted, and annoyed him, so the architects had the last laugh.
I didn't tell you that I went to a roof top yoga class last night - it was good to have a stretch.
The teacher was delightful and asked if I would like to go to another class tonight at the yoga studio.
I lost concentration on the way there, veered off in the wrong direction, but spotted a woman walking in the opposite direction with a yoga mat, stopped her and asked if she was going to Yoga Lab and so we went together (in hindsight I don't think she understood what I asked her but hey ho, it worked).
Cute studio behind big doors opening onto a portico (you know, I've banged on about these hidden gems). The first 20
minutes was eyeball yoga and do be honest, I'm not convinced - but we did to a few poses after that. They do the ommmm thing - but it was worth going. Now I'm tired and sweaty.
I'm moving on to Locorotondo in the morning - a train ride and a bit of a walk to the new accommodation - I'll report back tomorrow!
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