An American journalist heads for Italy to see his country changing from afar.

Photo Album from Lecce

Our Airbnb was a tight little stone cell with mildly erotic artistic touches from the artist.
Up steep stone steps, a second-floor terrace at our Airbnb for a chilly breakfast.
Most mornings start with cappuccini outside.
The wildly baroque facade of Basilica of Santa Croce held up a fullmoon.

I thought that, by leaving my country for a few weeks, it would improve. I was wrong. Oh well. At least Italy is still Italy.

The square structure and tall column each hold a statue of Lecce’s patron saint, Bishop Oronzo, a 1st century martyr converted by St. Paul.
Named for the baroque composer, this mini-opera house put on a puppet show for kids, and us.
An exhibit of many elaborate Lego scenes was installed in the fort, Muro Urbiche, to draw chlldren to the historical site.
An enclosed garden in the fort, evening, under-lit palm trees and lemon trees, etc.
Late 19th century oil by Eugenio Maccagnami, b. Lecce 1852- d. Rome, 1930, better known as a sculptor.
One meal out per day. This dish at La Locanda del Ballerino, was special — tuna, crusted in sesame seeds, with prune and onion, sitting in soy sause. Cosi gusto!
That’s me in our stately U.S. Capitol, March 2, 2019 (before it was overrun by the Visigoths nearly 3 years later).
Church near Porto di Napoli. 1606. Compare to our U.S. Capitol dome.
Doug Cumming Avatar

Published by

Doug Cumming
Doug Cumming is an associate professor emeritus of journalism at Washington & Lee University with 26 years experience at metro newspapers and magazines. After getting a Ph.D. at UNC-Chapel Hill in mass communications, he taught multimedia reporting and feature writing at Loyola University-New Orleans and at W&L in Virginia. Earlier, he worked at the newspapers in Raleigh, Providence and Atlanta; was editor of the Sunday Magazine in Providence; and helped launch Southpoint monthly magazine in Atlanta. He won a George Polk Award and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
Categories:

Leave a comment