Around Lecce in the heat

June 22:  A low key day, with a relaxed breakfast in our room.  The landlady delivered hot fresh pastries to our door, but we had to make our own coffee.    

We found a modern, single panel controlled laundromat about 8 blocks away.  Betsy babysat the clothes washing while I went to the train station with Leslie and Dennis to see if we could change our departure time to something earlier in the day (for tomorrow).  We couldn't.  I returned by way of an ATM and got back to the laundromat just as Betsy was fininshing with the washing/drying.  (For our records, the washing cost 4.50 and drying 2 euros.)

Betsy and I spent most of the afternoon wandering around the northern half of old town Lecce.  It has lots of narrow, twisting lanes among numerous churches and 3 to 5 story buildings, with inner courtyards, we presume, since each builiding has large double doors big enough for a car to pass, and  a person-sized door cut into one of the large doors.  We also saw various piazzas and a nice park with statues of famous Lecceians (?), a fountain and playgrounds.  We had black cherry gelato in the park.  We also saw a most impressive historical city gate that reminded me of the Arche de Triumphe.

We re-joined the gang at the hotel for a siesta, happy hour, and later, fixed salad for dinner in.  We drank up our leftover beer, wine and sodas.

We ended the day with a stroll around the old town and got some great evening photographs of the churches, etc.