If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR418.18), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Aristocratic by name, artistic by nature, Palazzo Maresgallo is a grand, gallery-style stay in the heart of Lecce. There’s so much to feast your eyes on (sculptural furniture, hand-painted frescoes, and photographic exhibitions are just part of the picture) you’ll almost wish you had an audio guide to wander the 16th century halls – and this is before you’ve seen your individually decorated suite, which will reframe your idea of how ancient rooms can be given an artful update. Every stone-walled inch has been carefully curated by a Parisian architect and his art-collecting wife, with Lecce’s masterpieces (the Duomo and Roman amphitheatre, for starters) to marvel at from the rooftop terrace and outdoor pool.
10.30am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 2pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £393.93 (€460), including tax at 10 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional local city tax of €2.50 per person per night on check-out.
More details
Rates include a daily-changing breakfast spread of handmade pastries, fresh local fruit, cheeses, cured meats, and eggs.
Also
Upper floors can be reached using the palazzo’s elevator, and there are some ground-floor room options for guests with mobility issues.
At the hotel
Rooftop terrace, art gallery, lounge areas, library, charged laundry service, plug adaptors, and free WiFi. In rooms: air-conditioning, TV, minibar, tea-making kit, Lavazza coffee machine, pool towels, and Moooi bath products.
Our favourite rooms
When every room is individually named and decorated, and jam-packed with one-off artworks, it really comes down to personal taste when deciding where to rest your head at Palazzo Maresgallo. For us, Onirica lives up to its ‘dreamlike’ name, with its own private terrace overlooking Lecce’s creamy limestone buildings, and a statement partition decorated with antique wallpaper which was salvaged from the suite’s original walls and given new life (and not a purely decorative one at that, as it now hides a massive walk-in wardrobe).
Poolside
Fringed by fragrant Salento plants and swaying palms, the outdoor (unheated) plunge pool is open daily between 8am and midnight if you need to cool off from the Puglian heat – or simply bask in its golden glow. The honey-hued stone wall which hems in the terrace, dotted with elegant loungers and shaded tables, gives the sun-baked setting a secret garden feel.
Spa
In the depths of the palazzo’s 16th-century stone vaults, steam rises from the heated indoor pool (open daily between 8am and midnight) – in a mystical, moodily-lit chamber, reminiscent of a Roman bathhouse. Recline on the mosaic-tiled chaise-longue, or sit beneath the ancient arches as you dangle your feet in the warm waters. There’s also a cedar-wood sauna to unwind in, and a treatment room for the many massage styles on offer. Personal-training sessions are available on request in the stone-walled, well-equipped fitness room.
Packing tips
Come with a hearty appetite for art and food – Lecce is known as the ‘Florence of the south’ after all. Pack light for the sweltering heat, but don’t forget a cover-up to enter churches and more traditional museums without raising a few eyebrows.
Also
Some of the palazzo’s traditional Salentine ceilings have been given a modern-art makeover by Italian painter, Roberto Ruspoli – and-drawn figures dance across the star-shaped vaults in a series of fabulous frescoes.
Pet‐friendly
Small, well-behaved dogs are welcome to stay in any room here for an additional charge of €100 a night, for each pet. See more pet-friendly hotels in Lecce.
Children
All ages are welcome, but this feels more like a grand getaway for grown-ups and history-loving honeymooners.
The hand-sculpted, papier-mâché-covered Hiroko chairs in the Taste Salon are like sitting on works of art – and make the perfect talking point.
Dress Code
The most artsy, over-accessorised ensemble in your wardrobe (think bold colours, head-turning prints, and statement jewels).
Hotel restaurant
You won’t even notice that there’s no restaurant at Palazzo Maresgallo, thanks to the fully-equipped kitchens (which play host to Apulian cooking classes) and the elegantly styled Tasting Salon, which can be decked out for private dinner parties at the drop of a wide-brimmed hat. Breakfast is a veritable banquet of Salentine delicacies, served in the arched Buongiorno Lounge alongside specially-commissioned sculptures – or on the outdoor terrace shaded by citrus trees.
Hotel bar
Oversized glasses of Primitivo wines and chilled spritzy cocktails appear as if by magic on the palazzo’s rooftop (one of the largest in Lecce), as soon as the sun starts to set over the Baroque cityscape. The Duomo’s bell tower looms above the terrace bar (open daily between 5pm and 11pm), and you can also spot the Roman amphitheatre as you sip – and even be serenaded from your elevated seat during one of the many musical events hosted in the ancient ruins.
Last orders
Breakfast runs from 7.30am to 10.30am, with room service available later.
Room service
Breakfast can be ordered to your room each morning, as well as aperitivi in the early evening.
At the beating Baroque heart of Lecce lies Palazzo Maresgallo, just a few steps from the Duomo and within easy (driving) reach of Puglia’s beaches.
Planes
Brindisi is the closest international airport, just 40 minutes by car. The hotel can help organise transfers for €100, as well as to and from Bari airport for €200, just under two hours’ drive (for up to four passengers). If you’re travelling from the UK, there are more direct flights into Rome or Milan.
Trains
The hotel is a 10-minute walk from Lecce’s station, and there are usually taxis on stand-by (for around €15 one-way). Take Trenitalia’s direct, high-speed Frecce line from larger cities like Rome, and arrive in Lecce in just over five hours.
Automobiles
Charming yet compact, Lecce is most mesmerising on foot, but a set of wheels will come in handy if this is part of a wider Italian itinerary. There’s no onsite parking at the hotel, but the staff can direct you to a few secret spots around town (starting from around €20 a day).
Worth getting out of bed for
There’s plenty to draw the eye within Palazzo Maresgallo’s art-strewn walls, including an exhibition of striking images by photographer Uli Weber in the halls of the piano nobile. Step outside onto the Old Town streets and you almost immediately come face to façade with Lecce’s cathedral on the picturesque Piazza del Duomo, where ornately decorated columns, cascading staircases, and teetering belltower beckon you inside to gawk at the gold-plated ceilings and masterfully-hewn marble altar. Another emblem of Leccese Baroque style is the nearby Basilica di Santa Croce, which took local stonecutters over 100 years to complete (zoom in on the entablature detailing and you’ll soon understand why it took so long). A six-minute saunter down the vanilla-tinged tangle of streets will take you to Il Castello di Carlo V, a Norman castle (later enlarged, rather extensively, by King Charles V of Spain) and military stronghold against the persistent Ottoman attacks throughout the 16th century. Its muscular ramparts and stout bastions no longer rebuff hostile visitors, instead inviting the creatively-inclined inside for music recitals, art exhibitions, and to explore its papier-mâché museum.
If that’s enough culture for one day (well, more like several), Puglia’s coastline is lapped by the Adriatic and Ionian seas, stretching all the way to Italy’s southernmost tip. Lecce lies around seven kilometres inland, but there’s a Roman-straight road to the Adriatic town of San Cataldo which promises soft, sandy beaches and a seafront nature reserve. Keep driving south and you’ll hit Torre dell’Orso (a bottle-green bay backed by powdery dines and pine forests), and further still to reach Laghi Alimini – a pair of crystal-clear lakes encircled by Mediterranean woodland.
Local restaurants
Continue Palazzo Maresgallo’s art-trail with creativity of the culinary kind – the Apulian masterpieces (like the homemade pasta and pistachio-encrusted seafood) at Ristorante Arte dei Sapori are served beneath traditional star-vaulted ceilings, and paired with over 100 Salentine wines to try (not all at once, but all the more reason to return). The Michelin stars are aligned at Primo, a tiny, candlelit restaurant overseen by Gallipoli-born chef Solaika Marrocco, who exclusively makes use of Apulian ingredients throughout the smartly presented seven- and 10-course tasting menus. It feels only natural to follow Primo with Duo, another gourmet restaurant putting a refined spin on Puglia’s rustic dishes – like the saffron-spiced calamari cooked in traditional scapéce sauce, an old Gallipoli recipe.
Local cafés
Café culture in Lecce mostly revolves around the crumbly, custardy combination of pasticciotto and caffè leccese, a sweet treat best sampled alfresco on the terrace at Caffè Alvino (drinking in the views of the Roman amphitheatre is also on the menu here).
Local bars
Trendy cocktail bar Quanto Basta lives up to the hype, and recently launched a series of mixology masterclasses (though the friendly bartenders will often give you a front-row show when shaking up their unusual yet delicious creations).
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this centuries-in-the-making palazzo in Lecce and unpacked their organic olive oil and hand-painted ceramics, a full account of their Baroque city break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Palazzo Maresgallo in Puglia…
We like to think that the noble family who gave their name to Palazzo Maresgallo would have approved of the contemporary yet classically inspired updates made, almost half a millennium after this aristocratic residence was originally built. Update doesn’t really do the extensive renovation works justice, masterminded by owner and architect Lionel Gazzola (who happens to specialise in restructuring old, and often crumbling, buildings). Once her husband (and his team of local artisans) had reopened ancient doors and windows, reworked mosaic-tiled floors, and moved a few walls around, it was Miriam’s turn to cast her art collecting-eye over the interiors. A swirling, red-velvet Tatlin sofa here (originally designed by Mario Cananzi and Roberto Semprini for Edra in the Eighties), an octagonal chandelier by multidisciplinary designer Arik Lévy there, and a haute-Hellenistic installation by Lecce-based artist Fernando Spano. The bottom line is that you can Baroque and roll out of bed for a private art viewing, saunter down to the citrus garden for poolside chess games, then up to the rooftop for spritzy sundowners. Sounds like the ideal way to spend long Leccese summers if you ask us.
