Visit to the City Walls

It is good to take a step back and admire them first from the outside, from the herb paths that give Lecce's imposing Urban Walls a gentle, fragrant crown. Until a few years ago there was beaten earth and parked cars in their place. Even before that, many remember, the city's first soccer field and, beyond the walls, the San Francesco prison. Today the Mura Urbiche, after the mighty restoration work, are one of Lecce's most fascinating attractions, and this year the City of Lecce has made them accessible free of charge by taking advantage of guided tours by ArtWork.

Defense. It was the need that led Terra d'Otranto governor Ferrante Loffredo to commission Gian Giacomo dell'Acaya to design the imposing work. It was the mid-sixteenth century, a few decades earlier Otranto had fallen under Turkish sabers. From here moats, ramparts, the four access gates from which Porta San Martino is missing today, clearly give the idea of enclosure, of that girdle of stone wanted by Charles V to protect his cities, of that continuous scrutiny towards the horizon waiting for the enemy. The visit unravels along the walkways that were once the soldiers' patrols and then down, under the great vaults of living stone, inside the bastion of St. Francis where, engraved in the stone, one can admire a tetragrammaton, the ancestor of the pentagram, bearing a fragment of Gregorian chant. A small and precious example of how Lecce stone, used here for fortifying, is docile by nature and, before it became baroque, lent itself to fixing thoughts, reflections, prisoners' hopes for freedom.

The Walls can be accessed from the infopoint on Leonardo Leo Street, from where an aerial walkway leads to the walkways along the ramparts, which are five and a half meters high. The tour includes several multimedia displays.

Guided tours can be enjoyed with compulsory reservation and free ticket while places are available (30 people per round).

The ticket is available exclusively from the online ticket office www.artworkcultura.it and can be shown in hard copy or on a mobile device (smartphone or tablet).