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Lecce is famous for some of the most rapturous and energetic Baroque architecture in Italy, but what nobody tells you about the city is how young it is. I drove in on a hot steamy night in late June, and every café, every storefront was draped with the supple, preening form of a languorous ragazzo or ragazza practicing the twin arts of far niente and la dolce vita.
For first-time visitors, Lecce is a revelation. Beginning in the 1500's, dozens of churches and palazzi were erected in local honey-colored stone in a cutthroat spirit of ornamental one-upmanship. The softness of the stone encouraged the carving of voluptuous scampering putti, caryatids, portal crests, masks, garlands, fruit, corbels hoisted by grotesques, and lyrical scrolls. For anyone strolling the city's golden pedestrian streets today, the buildings are pure eye candy.
Don't agonize over where to stay: Starwood's Patria Palace Hotel (Piazzetta Gabriele Riccardi; 39-0832/245-111; www.starwood.com; doubles from $193) is the only game in town. The renovation of the old, distinguished palace is sadly clunky, but the service is expert, and though you'd never guess it from the hard look of Atenze, the hotel's restaurant, the food is amazing, according to Athena McAlpine. The second-floor rooms with little Juliet balconies and bang-on views of the rose window of the Basilica di Santa Croce are the ones to snag.
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