Not everyone is out and about. A community of Benedictine nuns--locals simply call them Le Suore ("the sisters")--lives a cloistered existence in the 12th-century convent of San Giovanni Evangelista on Via Manfredi. Although you're never allowed to see the sisters or meander around their convent, you can play a kind of culinary Russian roulette with them. Le Suore are almost always selling something to eat, though precisely what changes daily. Ring the bell at the door and a feathery old woman's voice crackles over the intercom, inviting you in. The bare front room looks  like a bank counter, but with a solid wall instead of bullet-proof glass and a lazy Susan in place of a teller's window. No one will appear, so you have to talk to the lazy Susan. Ask whether they have biscotti di pasta di mandorle--soft marzipan cookies with pear jelly in the center. A tray of 12 costs around $7. Then again, they may be selling raw fish that day; you never know. (That the sisters speak only Italian makes the game even more interesting.)

If you'd rather know what you're buying up front, visit the Mostra Permanente dell'Artigianato, a showcase for artisans from across the region. Inside a large, bland room are brilliant, hand-painted ceramics, wrought-iron candlesticks, stone carvings, and other handiworks. And, since this is a city-run enterprise, there's no markup.

The sole craft in short supply at the Mostra Permanente is the one that Lecce has been famous for since the 17th century: cartapesta, or papier-mâché. Lecce's workshops do a brisk business cranking out life-size saints, crucifixions, and crèches for churches around the world. Artisans are at work all over town, and watching one can occupy an afternoon. First, they mold wet sheets of paper around giant, featureless mannequins made of wire and straw, then they stand the rough statues in the street next to a coal-stoked brazier. Iron rods are shoved into the coals until they glow, at which point the maestro plucks one out and uses it to burn delicate details into the clothing and faces. Every time he touches the red-hot iron to the figure, it sends up licks of flames and billows of smoke, not unlike scenes of hell so popular in medieval mosaics. The charred bodies begin to look holy only after thick layers of paint have been applied.

Since a six-foot St. Francis won't fit into a carry-on, visit the tiny studio of Maurizio Cianfano, who specializes in foot-high figurines of 19th-century peasants. Constantly grinning under his close-cropped hair, Maurizio wears surgical gloves and a white lab coat spattered with the gray of papier-mâché. All around him are pots of paint, bowls brimming with clay heads, and regiments of unfinished straw bodies wrapped with thread. Onto these, Maurizio crafts papier-mâché clothing, paints in the details, and attaches the peasant's burden: a bundle of sticks across the back, a pile of wood under the arm, and a jug of wine for the free hand. Smaller figures start at about $25.

Lecce has its share of artists in the kitchen as well. Concettina Cantoro presides over a trattoria so unassuming that it's named Casareccia (Italian for "home cookin'"). It's clearly a converted family dining room, but along the walls are magazine clippings of Concettina demonstrating Lecce cooking to chefs in Boston and New York. She's a bit of a surrogate mamma to the workers who lunch here and groups who come for celebratory dinners. She hates impersonal menus and instead offers suggestions:  "Would you like a potato, mussel, and zucchini salad? How about meatballs for afterward, with pureed fava beans and wild chicory on the side?" By the time she's back in the kitchen, you realize that she's dictated your meal. Ah, well. Mamma knows best--unless she's suggesting an after-dinner shot of the digestivo d'alloro. It's a bitter, nuclear-green liqueur made from laurel leaves.

Beyond food and crafts, Lecce is celebrated for its architectural quirks. In particular, the city has its own version of baroque, which meshes the curves and curlicues of that period with the iconography and mythological beasts associated with the Middle Ages, several centuries prior. The facade of Lecce's Santa Croce is a perfect example of the style: The building itself is curvy and baroque, but decorated with a mix of pagan references and Christian symbols, including dragons, cherubs, winged Harpies, and pot-bellied mermaids. Atop one column is an ancient symbol of Christ's Passion: a mother pelican pecking at her breast, the blood flowing down to feed her fledglings.

For more oddball medieval symbolism, follow the coastal road south for 30 miles to Òtranto, an ancient city of twisting flagstone streets girded by a mighty wall. The mosaic floor of Òtranto's cathedral is a phantasmagoria of fantastical creatures: elephants, peacocks, cats with human feet, bow-brandishing centaurs, and a horse's body with three human heads.

Near the cathedral is Ristorante Da Sergio, a good place to digest the wild assortment of images, as well as heaping plates of linguine with shrimp. Sergio, like Concettina, prefers reciting the day's best to you. He proudly presents an oversize plate piled with the day's catch. If you order the roasted sea bass, he'll insist it needs a couple of giant prawns "to keep the fish company on the plate." As with Concettina, it's best to go with whatever Sergio suggests. You're guaranteed yet another happy ending.