Adventures with Julia

September 13, 2023

Masseria Trepana is a villa near Lecce that our agent in New York, Martina, thought we would enjoy. A Masseria refers to a farm house surrounded by local orchards including oranges, persimmons, pomegranates, figs and especially, olives. We arrived at noon time after having spent the morning on a self-guided walk about Matera. Got a few more photos that we included in yesterday’s post. Massimo drove us from Matera to the villa through flat countryside full of what looked like thousands of dead olive trees. We asked about the trees and were told that many thousands of olive trees had been attacked by bugs that caused a virus and killed the trees.

I have spent many hours updating the blog and was nearly finished with our time in Otronto, and Lecce, when my computer died and I lost all the text from several days. I do not have the energy to recreate the text, but will send lots of photos to try to make up for it. Our first day at the Masseria, we went to Otronto and met our guide, Sabrina.

We carried on and visited the Church of the Martyrs, the results of Ottoman savagery in 1480 and Renaissance architecture, and a huge tiles floor inside the Church of the Martyrs, along with 72 columns in the crypt, plus a lovely frescos. The Ottomans beheaded 800 people for refusing to give up their religion. The church contains some of the skulls.

On to Lecce, the capital the province. Turns out Puglio is the capital of the region, not a province. We took a break after lunch and reset with Sabrina at 5pm for another walking tour. This one was of the Old City of Lecce.

This Basilica shines in the setting sun. The top is Baroque and the bottom is Romanesque.

After the tour Sabrina took us to a special restaurant in the middle of the city called Vico dei Sotterranei. We had an excellent meal, found our way back to the car and drove home.