One Day in Bari: Things to Do

Bari Is Where the Trip Ends, and It Deserves Better Than That

Most people see Bari through a car window on the way to the airport. We gave it a day and an evening — the last night of the trip, €142.60 for the room — and it was the right call. It is a working port city of over three hundred thousand people rather than a show town, and after three days of whitewash and cone roofs that is a relief rather than a disappointment.

The old town, Bari Vecchia, is the part to walk. It is a dense knot of lanes between the castle and the sea, and the things worth seeing are all inside it or on its edge: the women who make orecchiette in the street, a Romanesque basilica that draws pilgrims from across the Orthodox world, the cathedral, a Norman castle, and a seafront to walk in the evening.

Strada Arco Basso: Pasta Made in the Street, in Front of You

This is the one thing in Bari that is genuinely unlike anywhere else. On Strada Arco Basso, a narrow lane in the old town, women make orecchiette at tables set up outside their own front doors — thumbing each piece off a sheet of dough, laying them out on wooden trays to dry in the air, and selling them by the bag to whoever walks past.

Locals call it Via delle Orecchiette, which is not its name on the map — look for Strada Arco Basso.

We were there at 11:53 on a Monday morning and it was in full swing: trays of fresh pasta drying in the sun, bags stacked up, a small crowd of people buying. It is a working street, not a demonstration — but they are entirely used to being photographed and they will sell you a bag either way.

The Basilica di San Nicola: The Reason Pilgrims Come to Bari

Bari holds the relics of Saint Nicholas — the fourth-century bishop of Myra who became Father Christmas by a long and strange route — brought to Bari in 1087 (Wikipedia). The basilica built to house them is the oldest and most important thing in the city, and it is still a pilgrimage church for both Catholic and Orthodox Christians.

The outside is severe: pale limestone, a broad flat facade between two unfinished towers, almost no decoration. It looks more like a fortress than a church, which is roughly what Norman Apulian Romanesque was going for. The inside is not severe at all — a gilded and painted wooden ceiling over the nave, heavy columns, and the crypt below where the relics are kept.

The cathedral is a short walk away and worth the detour at night, when the square in front of it is lit and nearly empty. It is a second great Romanesque church in a city that has two, and after dark it is the better of the two to stand in front of.

The Lungomare and the Teatro Margherita

Bari has a long seafront promenade, the Lungomare, and walking it is what the city does in the evening. On the stretch beside the old port stands the Teatro Margherita — a florid terracotta-and-cream theatre built between 1912 and 1914 on pillars sunk into the sea, because an agreement with the family that owned the rival Petruzzelli theatre barred the city from building any other theatre on municipal land — except one built by the sea. It is a museum now (Wikipedia).

It is a good building and a better story, and it sits at the point where the old town meets the harbour, so you will pass it whether or not you mean to. It is the building at the top of this page, photographed at 12:42.

Castello Svevo, and Why Bari Vecchia Is Better at Night

The Castello Svevo was built by the Norman king Roger II around 1132, destroyed in 1156, and rebuilt by Frederick II in 1233 (Wikipedia), and it anchors the landward side of the old town: a square mass of walls and towers with a dry moat of lawn around it. We walked up to it at quarter past seven, with the sky still blue behind the battlements, and came back past it at quarter to ten when it was floodlit and the square was empty.

That second walk is the one to make. Bari Vecchia in daylight is busy and a little guarded; after dark it is lamplight on worn limestone, washing overhead, people eating outside, and almost no traffic. The two squares to aim for are Piazza Mercantile and Piazza del Ferrarese, both on our plan for the old town — this is where Bari eats and drinks in the evening, and where you will end up whether or not you planned to. The lit Roman columns standing in one of the small squares are the kind of thing you walk past twice before noticing.

Antò: Where We Ate in the Old Town

We ate at Antò Cucina Tipica Pugliese, and it is the kind of place that explains why you give Bari an evening rather than an afternoon — chequered tablecloths, plates coming out faster than you can clear space for them, and portions built for people who have been walking all day.

Two things are worth naming. The spaghetti with mushrooms and black truffle, finished with a spoonful of truffle on top and a heavy hand with the parmesan. And a large flatbread loaded after baking — mortadella, torn burrata, tomato and lettuce piled on a charred base and brought to the table on a board, which is less a pizza than a thing you dismantle between three people.