Basilica of Santa Croce, Lecce

Basilica of Santa Croce, Lecce tickets: which one to buy

Santa Croce is the building that made Lecce famous and the one thing every visitor sees. Access arrangements have changed in recent years and a small admission is now charged in some seasons, sometimes combined with the adjoining former monastery, so check at the door rather than assuming free entry. Walking tours of the old town start or end here and take in the cathedral square, the Roman amphitheatre under the main piazza and the workshops where the soft local limestone is still carved;

two hours is enough for the centre. Tours devoted to the local baroque go further, out to the smaller towns of the Salento where the same masons worked. Lecce is well connected by train from Bari and is the natural base for the peninsula. The church closes over lunch, as does the whole town. The ticket desk, when one is open, is inside the door on the left rather than on the street.

Visiting Basilica of Santa Croce, Lecce: what to see

Work began in 1549 and continued for nearly a century and a half, finishing in 1695, and three generations of masons left their mark. The lower front was done by 1582 and is comparatively restrained; the upper half, added by Cesare Penna and Giuseppe Zimbalo, is not. A huge rose window sits at the centre, framed by columns and surrounded by a dense field of carved foliage, fruit, animals, grotesques and figures cut deep into stone soft enough to work like wood and hard enough afterwards to survive.

A row of figures strains under the balcony, said locally to represent Turkish prisoners taken at Lepanto, with animals among them standing for the Christian powers in the battle. Inside the church is calmer, with a Latin cross plan, side altars and a carved wooden ceiling. The monastery next door, now public offices, shares the same stonework. A dome rises over the crossing and was finished in 1590, a century before the front below it.

Basilica of Santa Croce, Lecce opening hours and the best time to go

Late afternoon and evening are when the stone is at its best: the limestone turns gold as the light drops and the front is floodlit after dark, which is when the carving reads most clearly. The middle of the day is hot and flat. Summer is very warm and the town lives at night; spring and autumn are ideal. The patronal feast in late August brings lights and music to the main square, and Holy Week has processions through the old town.

The papier-mache workshops that are the other local craft cluster in the streets nearby. Allow half an hour inside and at least as long standing outside, which is where the building actually happens. The amphitheatre and the cathedral square are each five minutes away. Guided evening walks of the baroque quarter run in summer and end at this front under the lights.