I am planning on visiting Lecce in October. The prices for flights and accommodation is much cheaper if I go on the 13th rather than the 6th. Is there a reason for this? Does the weather suddenly get much worse in mid-October? Or is there another reason I should know about?

The tourist season is busiest in summer, with a slow decline each week as you get into fall. So, our experience is that each week in the fall tourism slows a bit and therefore prices, especially with flights, seem to decline as the season sags. We stayed in Lecce in October 2016 and successfully used airbnb for our accommodations. Our landlady took us on a walking tour of the old town and introduced us to shop and restaurant proprietors. And, Lecce has many nice apartments at very inexpensive rates. I checked both week-ends you mentioned and saw 17 pages of old city apartments available on airbnb for each of those week-ends and prices seemed to be the same. We loved Lecce, its many nice affordable restaurants, numerous great gelato places and the nice evening vibe. Since it is in Basilicata, we didn't include it in our Puglia report, but we strongly recommend a visit to Matera if you get the chance.

If interested, here is a link to our trip report for October in Puglia: 7 days/6 nights in Puglia

Thank you so much for your help! And you very interesting report.