Tenuta Santicuti

Lecce is about 30 minutes away by car. Each taxi ride cost us 35 € one way, took a long time to arrive, and could be difficult to arrange because the operator sometimes didn’t speak English. The hotel staff couldn’t help call, they only gave us the taxi company’s number. On the first day, the hotel owner did help arrange a taxi for our group of 18. There’s no restaurant on site for lunch or snacks. Drinks can only be bought in the morning at 08 AM or in the evening at 07:30 AM. There’s no shop, supermarket, or restaurant nearby, so lunch means taking a taxi to Lecce. The hotel dinner costs 25 €/person, including water but not dessert. The salad and second main course, fish, were very small portions. Restaurants in Gallipoli, Lecce, Otranto, and elsewhere offer tourist menus for 20 € including dessert. I haven’t ordered those menus, since at all the restaurants one main course has been a large enough portion for me. The reception is only open during breakfast and dinner. There’s no indoor lobby where we could sit outside those times, and the open air area was too windy. All the rooms are outside the villa’s main building, far from reception and the entrance. After rain, the path to our room was a bit flooded and had lots of worms along it that weren’t cleared away. For our 06 AM early checkout, they left a breakfast bag prepared the night before with one plain croissant, a small piece of cake, and one plum, with no bottled drink. We had to open and close the entrance ourselves because reception was still closed.