Day 8: Trani

The early morning overcast disappears by the time we set out for Bari….the weather for our first week has been wonderful–warm and sunny during the day, cool and pleasant at night.

We have never been to Bari….it is a city that has a reputation for being a bit rough, chaotic and forbidding–similar to Naples and Palermo. So, although we are not generally timid travelers, we do feel a twinge of anxiety as we get closer to the city. We exit the main highway a few miles away from the center and immediately hit a steady stream of traffic but it moves along in an mostly orderly flow. Suddenly we find ourselves on the water (the old city is on a peninsula jutting out into the Adriatic) and passing the piers for the large ferries that go to Greece, Albania, Croatia, etc.

Once past the port, the traffic diminishes and we start looking for a place to park along the wide street that hugs the water. We notice that the parking on the inland side is all restricted to cars with local permits, but on the other side of the street, metered parking is available for visitors and there are plenty of spaces available. We are able to park right outside the gate that leads to the Basilica of San Nicola, the major church in the city.

San Nicola, who is the same as Saint Nicholas (or Santa Claus), also has a great following in the Russian Orthodox church, and there are signs in Russian on the street and around the building. His relics are housed in the lower crypt and there are usually a number of pilgrims worshipping at the altar. The main sanctuary is restrained and serene….it is lined with attractive columns and there is a dramtic series of arches connecting the two sides.

Less sober is the intricately designed ceiling with paintings and gold leaf…

(An added attraction of the basilica complex are the well maintained rest rooms that are available to the public.)

Leaving San Nicola, we enter the narrow, twisting streets of the old town-Bari Vecchia, which open up at intervals to brighter piazzas surrounded by apartments, many with laundry hanging out of windows to dry.

In fact, the neighborhood doesn’t feel oppressive or forbidding at all…..the area had been heavily bombed during World War II and the houses were newly rebuilt but the street plan was unchanged so the sense of the town is both old and new. After strolling for a good while, we leave the old town on the Via Vittorio Emanuele, a main street that divides old Bari from new Bari. The street has broad sidewalks and many benches and provides a good place for a short rest. New Bari was built on a regular grid in the 19th century and the streets are filled with shops, some very exclusive.

We walk down towards the water and visit the fish market which is located on the Piazza Ferrarese, a wide open square that houses many restaurants and spills over into the Piazza Mercantile which is also bright and attractive. We complete the circuit of the old town and end up at the basilica San Nicola and go back to the car. We take a short drive around the rest of downtown Bari and admire the series of fountains that spout streams of water into the air.

To borrow a line from our friend Ulf (in his case about Albania): We were robbed in Bari……robbed of our preconceptions and prejudices. We enthusiastically recommend a visit to Bari.

For lunch, we drive a few kilometers down the coast to Torre a Mare where we eat in a restaurant recommended in the Slow Food Guide. As soon as we are seated in the covered rooftop atrium, the waiter asks us if we want “antipasto” and when we say “si”, plates start to arrive immediately filled with all sorts of seafood in many different preparations–some raw, lots of octopus, some delicious fish, a cone of ricotta cheese, a plate of fava bean puree, some baked “muffins” and an exceptional dish made with grain, potatoes, tomatoes and mussels. A delicious bottle of a local white wine goes very well with this feast.

The room is filled with other diners and every table is being served this antipasto array. Once we wind down, the waiter asks us if we want pasta but we decide to skip it and ask for fish. We get a large platter with baked fish prepared with potatoes, olives and tomatoes and we are able to finish most of it. The waiter then asks if we would like some “sorbetto” and we say yes. The sorbetto is served in a little ice cream cone and as we are finishing it, a large plate of panna cotta and cream puffs covered with more whipped cream and chocolate sauce arrives. When we groan, the man at the next table tells us that it is “included”, and we do manage to eat a good deal of it. We do resist tasting anything from three bottles of liqueur that land on our table……

We ask for the check and are surprised to see that the lunch is a fixed price–Euro 35.00 per person, including everything…..quite a lot of delicious food and drink for the money.

We take the fast route back to Trani–with a short detour to Bisceglie, another port town where we end up driving the wrong way down a narrow one-way street and are happy when the other driver accommodates us and backs up to the intersection so we can pass. We do spot a sign that indicates the direction to a nearby “dolmen”…a stone monument common in Puglia that date back to the Neolithic age…which are frequently found in the middle of old olive groves. On our previous trip to Puglia, we enjoyed “dolmen hunting” and we will try to visit the Bisceglie dolmen tomorrow.

Later in the afternoon, we pay a visit to a bookstore-cafe on the port that I had read about in an Italian magazine and was intrigued because one of the pictures showed the cafe with a portrait of Thelonious Monk on the wall. The name–Maria del Porto–is from a Georges Simenon novel and the owner is known for sponsoring literary evenings and “Dialogs” on public policy and cultural issues. The store does have a nice, eclectic selection of books that we browse through….but the cafe is closed and the staff is not very friendly so we don’t stay long.

We don’t have much appetite for dinner after our big lunch outside of Bari so we walk to the closest pizzeria–La Buca Navarra–where we have a light dinner–an okay pizza for Diana and a surprisingly good antipasto plate with delicious salumi and cheese for me. We make a short detour so I can take a picture of the cathedral at night

before we go back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we pack up and head for Matera…