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Bari is the second largest city in, and the industrial powerhouse of, Southern Italy, a busy port and oil refining center that can thumb its economic nose at the disparaging remarks made by Italy's northerners regarding the south's lack of industrial initiative.
It's also the home of Santa Claus—or rather, the bones of St. Nicholas, sheltered in Apulia's first grand Romanesque church.
Bari has a great Old City to wander, a few more late medieval churches and a castle, and a mediocre painting gallery, along with ferries to Greece and some fine cuisine.
Bari was old when the Greeks got here, but it was the Romans who turned it into the Adriatic trading center that, under the Byzantines and later the Normans, rivaled Venice throughout the Middle Ages.
Contemporary Bari has paid a price for its modernity in urban sprawl and pollution, but it has one of Apulia's two universities to give it that spark of life often missing from southern towns, and it’s a decent base for exploring the region.
Bari tourism info:
32 Piazza Moro Aldo
tel. +39-080-524-2244
www.infopointbari.com
www.viaggiareinpuglia.it
Bari tours & guides:
The tourist information office is at Piazza A. Moro 32 ( tel. +39-080-524-2244), the right side of the square as you exit the train station. There's also an office inside the station ( tel. +39-080-558-0817) open Monday to Friday 8:30am to 7pm, Saturday 8:30am to noon.
Youths should head directly to Stop Over in Bari, Via Nicolai 47 (tel. 080-521-4538, www.inmedia.it/StopOver). Besides city info and a room-finding service (available to visitors of any age), they offer (to those under 30) free: city bus pass, bikes, camping, and weekly excursions. They have coupons for shopping and restaurants and are open Monday to Saturday 8:30am to 1:30pm and 4:30 to 8:30pm.
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Bari tourism info:
32 Piazza Moro Aldo
tel. +39-080-524-2244
Bari tours & guides: