Lecce is one of the loveliest, liveliest towns in Southern Italy, but some of its best secrets hide in the unlikeliest of places
I was walking up the street in Lecce near Santa Croce church when someone across at the edge of my peripheral vision started calling out to me in English "Hey! Hello! Excuse me, hello!"
As usual — as with the hotel touts at train stations, the man at the postcard stand today, and the guy playing his guitar (badly) yesterday in a doorway — when strangers on the street in Italy start talking to me in "American," I ignore them completely. Not to be rude, but because 9.99 times out of ten they want to sell me something I don't want or need, and they're out to fleece me to boot.
So I kept walking ahead. Then the voice said "Eh, uhm... Frommer's! Frommer's, hello!"
Wait a minute. This guy knows who I am.
