Even though there was absolutely nothing to eat or drink in the apartment we are still on vacation time–Ken slept really late, which to us means 9:00.  We had a list for the morning’s errands.

First order of business:  go to a bar and get some coffee! We shared a croissant and we both said  “we’re not in Amsterdam anymore” but it wasn’t bad at all. There are not as many bars here as in most cities–only one every other block, so we had to walk almost 2 blocks before we found one.  Fortified with caffeine we took off for our next destination:  get SIM cards and a plan for our phones. I was undecided between TIM and Vodafone but the Vodafone store was just across from the coffee place so we chose it.  Pretty easy, we paid 30 euros each for our new Italian phone numbers so we can call anywhere now, use data like google maps when we’re not in wi fi.  Weird thing is we can’t text!  But we have our What’s App app for that.  All set up.

Next stop:  groceries.  The supermarket near us is called Dok.  I’ve never seen one before but it was OK for us to get some basics.  However, they have no bio/organic produce at all.  I looked online and there is a bio market we’ll have to check out.

We brought the groceries home an tried to get things more organized.  There is a real kitchen here but the cookware is very limited and there is only a tiny little spot to put your food.  There are 2 large, beautiful wine glasses but no tea cups, just little espresso cups.  There is a full oven and 5 burner stove top as well as an emulsion blender but no knife other than a bread knife (luckily I brought one of my chef knives in my suitcase) and there’s is no tea kettle.  It’s really strange.

We wanted to explore Lecce, of course so we just walked around the beautiful historic center.  I wished we had brought a guide book so it was just a meandering; we still don’t know one piazza from the next.

MacDonalds??? on the left.

This window is just on the street–not part of a church.

I thought if I found a couple of mugs that I really liked I’d buy them and take them home but I didn’t.

For lunch we went to Guido and Sons (recommended by the Vodafone person) and really enjoyed it.  It’s a cafeteria.  I got some simple baked chicken with eggplant and Ken got lasagna.  All homey and good but nothing special.

I heard music and we wandered up to a church and a choral group was singing–they looked like high school girls and we didn’t find out where they were from but we listened for a while.  They sounded beautiful!

The forecast was for storms and it really was getting dark so we came home.  It thundered a lot but never really did rain.  Until! we went out to the bakery near us for bread.  We just got caught in a few drops.

So what to do?  I took a great nap, listening to the thunder.

Before dinner we wanted to take another walk.  We passed by the bakery and it was jam packed with people.  We thought we were walking in a big circle but when, after about an hour, we wanted to head home we had no idea where we were.  That’s the fun of it!  Got out our trusty phones and google guided us home in about 10 minutes.  For the recored, we were walking in the completely opposite direction of our place.

Came home and made not-so great porchetta sandwiches and salad and drank the Rose wine Gianni left for us. Not the best food day–glad we’re here for a week!

View from our balcony.