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BARI |
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Commercial and administrative capital of Puglia, a university town
and the mezzogiorno's second city, BARI has its fair share of interest.
But although an economically vibrant place, it harbours no pretensions
about being a major tourist attraction. Primarily people come here for
work or to leave for Greece on its many ferries.
Bari was already a thriving centre when the Romans arrived. Later the
city was the seat of the Byzantine governor of southern Italy, while
under the Normans Bari rivalled Venice, both as a maritime centre and,
following the seizure of the remains of St Nicholas, as a place of
pilgrimage. Since those heady days Bari has declined considerably. Its
fortunes revived briefly in 1813 when the king of Naples foisted a
planned expansion upon the city - giving the centre its contemporary
gridded street pattern, wide avenues and piazzas. And Mussolini
instituted a university and left a legacy of strident Fascist
architecture. But the city was heavily bombed during the last war, and
today its vigorous centre is a symbol of the south's zeal for commercial
growth at the expense of local identity and character
The City
There's not a lot to the new city of Bari, bar a good museum or two. Its
straight streets are lined with shops and offices, relieved occasionally
by the odd piazza and bit of greenery, best of which is the starting-point
of the evening passeggiata, Piazza Umberto I - usually full of stalls
selling jewellery, books and prints. Off the piazza, the university
building houses an excellent Museo Archeologico , which is unfortunately
closed for restoration at present. If it's re-opened by the time of your
visit, it's well worth a look for anyone interested in the region's
history: it holds a good selection of Greek and Puglian ceramics and a
solid collection of artefacts from the Daunic, Messapian and Peucetic
peoples - Puglia's earliest inhabitants. Afterwards, cut to the right
for tree-lined Corso Cavour , Bari's main commercial street, which leads
down to the waterfront. Right along here, in the Palazzo della
Provincia, the Pinacoteca Provinciale (Tues-Sat 9am-1pm & 4-7pm, Sun
9am-1pm; L5000/¬2.58) is a local art collection of mainly southern
Italian stuff, twelfth- to nineteenth-century, with strong work by the
fifteenth-century Vivarini family. |
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