The Streets of Bari

Getting off the ship today we noticed that they had updated the world cruise map to include our stops in Africa.  Wish they'd get a t-shirt with that map on it!

Karl and I, along with Jane and Mark, left the ship early in order to see a few sights before the city got crowded and our tour began.  Bari is located in the part of Italy known as Puglia, the southern part of the Italian boot.  It's been a port and commercial center for literally centuries.

The original castle was built by a Norman king in 1131 on top of an old Byzantine settlement.

There is a moat that surrounds the castle on three sides, the other side is bordered by the sea making it an easily defensible fortress.

Apparently not strong enough though because it was leveled during the citywide destruction by William the Bad of Sicily.

It was rebuilt between 1233 and 1240 by Swabian King Frederick !!.  Don't know who the Swabians were?  I didn't either until I did some research and found that they were a Germanic group.

Lots of street scenes in this post.  We were told that one of the best things you can do in Bari is to get lost in the labyrinth of Old Town so we did our best to make that happen by just wandering.

Monday must be wash day in Bari, there were countless balconies with laundry hanging from them.

One of the streets we were glad we went down early was this one, the Strada Arco Basso, where we were able to watch nice older ladies making Bari's traditional orecchiette pasta.

Note the hats handing above the street in the photo above.  When we looked inside them we realized that they were light fixtures.  It would have been fun to see them at night.

Orecchiette means "little ear" and that's what they are shaped like.  There were trays of colors of them drying on tables along the street, as well as bags of pasta for sale, along with biscotti like sweets.  We bought a bag of the multicolor pasta and Karl is planning to cook it in our tea kettle in the room.  Since it doesn't have any preservatives the pasta is only supposed to be good for a month.

They make the pasta in various sizes, you can see the lady here is making the smaller pieces but there are some of the larger ones in the bags in front of her.  More on how it's made later.  You do however, use a knife like the one she has in her hand.

We thought something like this would be good at our house in the back where there is lots of sun and heat in the summer, not sure how they would do in the winter though.

More laundry scenes, loved the colorful awnings as well.

A pretty street through an archway.  Later on these streets would be full of residents, tourists, and the occasional Vespa or bike.

Spires would seem to magically appear over rooftops.

Couldn't help but do a door collage here.  I especially loved the blue one and the green one.  Many doors had these lace curtains over them which would allow the owners to open the door during the hotter part of the day to get some ventilation while still keeping the flies out.

More narrow street scenes.

Some of my favorite people to travel with.

This little shrine was one of several that I saw attached to houses, this one was quite a way up the wall.

It was different to see this exterior of brick when everything around it was stucco.

These arrows were a little bit of help if you got lost.

I couldn't get Google translate to work any of these heart signs, the only one I could actually read was the one on the left that says "Welcome to Old Town Bari".

Jane thought it would be a fun photo to put each of us next to a heart shadow.

There were a couple of streets that had strings of flags above them.

Some of the fruit stands were just opening up as we wandered.  These Sicilian tomatoes were so beautiful I had to take a photo of them, with that fresh basil they would have made an amazing pasta sauce.

More beautiful produce.  A few people on our tour later on tried the peaches and said they were delicious.

Near the large Piazza del Ferrarese below, close to the old port, was this sign, pretty much delineating what was a newer part of town.

This small archeological site on the piazza showed what the old road looked like, as well as an even older road below that one.

The pretty Iglesia de Santa Vallisa.

Another street scene after we started our tour.  Today's organized tour was pretty much a bust.  We were supposed to go on a food tour, sampling various Italian foods with a little history of the city along with it.  Somehow it turned into a long walking tour with 1/3 cup of pasta and a couple of scoops of gelato.  Good thing we were on it with people we like so it was still a good time.

Up above the walkway was this colorful scene that caught my eye.

These broken columns show where the edge of the old port of Bari was located.  Water is much further away now.  There is a large marina to the right in this photo, and the Iglesia de Santa Vallisa  and the archeology site would be to my left.  We came back this way again on our tour and learned about the port.

Another of the large piazzas in the city.  Most of the area is pedestrian only but for two hours in the morning and two in the evening cars are allowed in for residents and those who have businesses there.  You never know when a horn may honk behind you, or a Vespa zip by.

By the time we got to this bakery we were feeling pretty hungry.  We hadn't eaten breakfast because we were supposed to be on a food tour.  Unfortunately for us this was our gelato stop so no pastries!

My gelato was quite delish today though.  I had a cherry flavor on top and the other scoop was Nocciola, an "Italian taste with piedmont hazelnuts".  It was my fav today.

Just me enjoying some gelato!

One of the main sights to see in Bari is the Basilica of Saint Nicholas, their patron saint.

The cathedral took over 100 years to build from 1087-1097.  Now for some bad news, this site holds the remains of Saint Nicholas, yep, I’m talking about THAT St. Nick, the one Santa Claus is based on.  

The fascinating thing about this patron saint of children, sailors, merchants, repentant thieves, brewers, archers, pawnbrokers and students is that not a lot is known about him.  Legend goes that he was from Bari and supposedly wanted to be buried here.  

With concerns about his remains and relics originally being in Turkey, the Venetians tried to get them moved to Venice, but Bari won out in the end.  

The Basilica has been a place of pilgrimage for both Catholics and Orthodox Christians for hundreds of years as they come to see the relics and pay their respects to the saint.   The ceiling paintings are quite spectacular here.

Note the balcony above the main chapel.

In the lower chamber of the basilica are what are supposed to be the actual remains of Saint Nicholas.  I went down to look at them but there was a ceremony going on with probably two dozen priests and at least one cardinal so I didn't take any photographs.  It always feels weird to me to be taking pictures in places where people are worshipping.  I did record some wonderful singing by the priests however.

We were also there in the basilica for a wedding.  Apparently this church is a favorite for that, especially this time of year.  The bride and groom made a lovely couple.  I thought about how weird it would be to have a bunch of complete strangers at your wedding wandering around taking pictures.  The organ playing the wedding march was pretty impressive.

Outside was the getaway car for the newlyweds, pretty posh as Jane would say.

This one is going to be a little weird.  These jars of something called Manna are available in the basilica's gift shop.  Prices range from around €15 to €2500 ($16-$2700) depending on the size and the beauty of the bottle, some of which may be hand painted.  What might you ask is liquid Manna?  You may not want to know!  Once a year, on May 9, the sarcophagus of St. Nicholas is opened and liquid is extracted that is believed to have oozed from the bones.  We all felt like that was just a little creepy but May 7-9 are huge holy days in Bari.  The faithful believe that this holy water has miraculous healing properties.  With the number of jars there for sale I would have to believe that whatever is recovered from the bones has been diluted quite a bit to make so many bottles worth of holy water.

Since it was another wedding day I asked Amy and Dave to recreate their roles of Andrea and Diego from our tour Costa Rica, another time when we had unexpectedly crashed a wedding.

One final photo of the facade of the Basilica of Saint Nicholas.

Another household shrine attached to a home.

At this pretty piazza we went for our pasta making lesson (which we hadn't signed up for) and pasta tasting experience (which we had signed up for).  We were pretty tired and hot by this point, having walked over three miles powered by two scoops of gelato.

Our tour for seven that turned into a tour of 22.  We were all placed around this table where there was no ventilation except for the door behind Karl.  It was pretty warm.  Each of us had a small pile of semolina flour in front of us.  We were told to make a well inside it and then our "instructor" came along and put some water in the well, telling us to mix it in with the flour to make a dough.  Note here, nowhere to wash our hands before making the pasta!  Once it was a soft dough we were to roll it into a cylinder, just like the ladies we had seen making pasta had done.

Then you take a knife, cut off about a 3/4" piece of dough and scrape the knife edge over the bit of pasta, which flattens it and curls it at the same time.  Then you take that piece and turn it inside out over your thumb to make the orecchiette shape.  My work is on the left and Karl's is on the right.  You may be surprised to know that mine were the best in the group so I will be happy to give you lessons when I get home. 🤣. The 1/3 cup of finished pasta on the top was our "taste".  The pasta itself was okay, a little chewy, but the sauce was fairly flavorless and overall kind of disappointing.

Once we finally finished our tour, we were ready to be done halfway through, we went in search of a place to get some pizza or focaccia, something Italian to eat.  Karl and I managed to get lost again while the others sat in a restaurant for 10 minutes without ever being acknowledged by a waiter so they left there and we managed to fine one another again. By that time all we had time for was to walk back to Serenade together.

Luckily they always have pizza in the Windjammer so we all went up there once we got back and had some lunch.  I took this shot of the old city from the stern of the ship.  It was a beautiful place and enjoyable to walk around in so overall we enjoyed our visit..

As for our tour, some days are just like that.  You plan and think you know what you're in for when you book a tour but some guides are just better than others, and some tours are better than others.  We've learned it doesn't really make much difference either way as long as you have people along that you can laugh with, and we certainly have that every day as we journey on.