Puglia Help - Recommendations for Stay in Lecce or Otrano
 

As many of you know from my previous thread, we are planning a week trip to Puglia with a 2 year old and a 4 year old. We are set on staying in a Masseria probably next to Ostuni for the first four nights of our trip. I am thinking it would be best to stay in either Lecce or Otrano proper for the second half and make day trips to Gallapoli and the beaches of the Salento from there. Do the hotels/apartmenthotels in Lecce or Otrano offer parking? Or should we stay just outside the city center? If you have any recommendations on where to stay in either Lecce or Otrano please do share. We would prefer somewhere that is actually walking distance to the city center (and with Otrano to the beach as well) but also want the ability to jump into a car to take day trips. Or should we avoid renting a car at all for that portion of the trip and rely on taxis. Also if you think the idea of staying in Lecce or Otrano is not a good one please let me know.

We rented at Roof Barocco Suites and they have a spot in a garage (outside the ztl) available for guest's use a short walk from the home, but you do have to go up a long flight of stairs to access the apartment (which are on the roof of the villa).
Lecce is probably the only place we found it remotely stressful to drive in and out of, but it was not a huge deal. It really just depends if you want easy access to the city.

These are excellent questions, Reeshiez. I must compliment you on reviewing where you left off in your last post, and then starting afresh. Good job.

I am ZERO help on Lecce parking. We rode into town via transportation provided by our cycle trip company at the very end of our tour, and we plopped in town without moving outside the city boundaries for a few days. However, I have hopes that by replying, I can keep your post bumped up to the top with more informative and reliable Lecce responses.

My impression was, however, that Lecce is a place one is better off without a car. There's rail station parking, but rail station parking lots can be iffy, as you know. I hope someone can help you with that.

On the flip side, if memory serves me (and I am getting to be old as dirt, so...) Ostuni and Otranto did have huge parking lots. We had to use those lots in which to congregate our group for cycling stops, and those lots had easy access to center town. We got to meet a lot of people NOT on our cycling trip in those places because it had easy in/out access for cars.

Thank you both so much for the suggestions. Good to know that Otrano has parking and I will check out Roof Barracco Suites. One more question - Can we drive into Gallapoli? My understanding is that we would have to cross a pedestrian bridge. Also where should we see other that Otrano, Lecce and Gallapoli? We plan on seeing the Valle D'itra in the first half of our trip

We rented an apartment in Lecce via airbnb very reasonably, but it was probably too small for your group. It was in the center, and our landlord showed us a couple of nearby streets, five minutes walk away where we were able to find free parking each day without problem. We didn't find navigating the roads in Lecce to be difficult. We use google offline maps for GPS. As we recall, Gallipoli had a large waterfront car park very close to the old town. We cannot imagine, although it is possible, not having a car all over Puglia. Parking or parcheggio seemed easy to locate on GPS everywhere.

We enjoyed Otranto. It has a Greek feel. I am sure the whole family will enjoy.