Photo: Giuseppe Milo (CC BY 3.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour inside the old walls of Lecce, from the Castle of Charles V to Porta San Biagio. It starts at the castle, commissioned by Charles V from 1539, and goes to Piazza Sant'Oronzo, where about one third of the Roman amphitheatre lies open beside the column of Sant'Oronzo, built from drums of a Roman column at Brindisi, and the Sedile of 1592. Past Santa Maria della Grazia and the Jesuits' Chiesa del Gesù, it reaches the Basilica of Santa Croce, built between 1549 and 1646 with a Renaissance lower order and a Baroque upper one, and the Palazzo dei Celestini beside it, then the Alcantarine church and Porta Napoli of 1548, faced by the Obelisco. Back through the town come the Teatro Paisiello, Sant'Irene dei Teatini and Piazza del Duomo, with the cathedral rebuilt by Giuseppe Zimbalo from 1659 to 1670, its bell tower of 70 to 72 metres, the Episcopio and the Seminario. After Santa Teresa, Porta Rudiae of 1703 and San Giovanni Battista al Rosario, where Zimbalo is buried, the walk passes San Francesco della Scarpa, the Roman Theatre museum, Santa Chiara with its papier-mâché ceiling, San Matteo and the Faggiano Museum, and ends at Porta San Biagio, rebuilt in 1774.
26 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 133 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 31 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Castle of Charles V, Roman Amphitheatre of Lecce, Colonna di Sant'Oronzo, Sedile, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Grazia, Chiesa del Gesù, Basilica of Santa Croce, Palazzo dei Celestini, Santa Maria della Provvidenza, Porta Napoli.
Obelisco, Teatro Paisiello, Chiesa di Sant'Irene dei Teatini, Lecce Cathedral, Campanile del Duomo, Episcopio, Palazzo del Seminario, Chiesa di Santa Teresa, Porta Rudiae, Basilica di San Giovanni Battista al Rosario.
Church of San Francesco della Scarpa, Museo del Teatro Romano, Church of Santa Chiara, Church of San Matteo, Faggiano Museum, Porta San Biagio.
The excavated third of Roman Lupiae's amphitheatre, seen from Piazza Sant'Oronzo, with its vaulted passages and curving tiers of seating.
Giuseppe Zimbalo's votive column for the 1656 plague, built from marble drums of a Roman column at Brindisi; the statue on top is a copy.
The Celestine church built between 1549 and 1646, with thirteen carved figures on its balustrade and tiny grotesques across the façade.
Zimbalo's Baroque cathedral of 1659 to 1670, with a richly carved false façade and a crypt pillar bearing Lecce's oldest emblem.
The Poor Clares' church rebuilt in 1687 to 1691, under a false ceiling of more than 300 papier-mâché modules.
A private house where a sewer repair became an excavation, revealing Messapian tombs, a Roman granary and more than 2,000 years of layers.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 26 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 26 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Lecce — the Baroque City of Santa Croce, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
26 narration points, including Castle of Charles V, Roman Amphitheatre of Lecce, Basilica of Santa Croce, Palazzo dei Celestini and Porta Napoli. That is about 41 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 26 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.