Lecce, Italy

Lecce is a city of about 95,000 residents in Puglia, southern Italy, nicknamed the "Florence of the South" for the 17th-century baroque carved from the area's soft Lecce limestone. The 1659 Basilica of Santa Croce displays a rose window and a façade studded with 1,400 carved figures, while the 1592 Piazza del Duomo forms one of the most theatrical baroque squares in the country. King Roger II built a Norman-Swabian castle here in 1140, and Emperor Charles V later added a five-pointed 16th-century star-plan fortification to its walls. Beneath the modern streets, a 25-metre Roman amphitheatre once seated 25,000 spectators, and parts of it still lie buried under the surrounding piazza.