"Bari, Italy" a Bari Travel Page by karenincalifornia

I had a hard time finding any information on the city before I got to Italy and there is a good reason. This is not a popular tourist destination. Bari, located on the Adriatic sea (eastern side of Italy), is very industrial. This area of Italy is as flat as Kansas and not scenic like other parts of Italy. The city is also reputed to be a high crime area.

When we rented our car at the Rome airport, I was asked where I was taking the car. I replied "Umbria, Tuscany and Bari." The rental agent warned me, "Keep your eye on the car in Bari." When I asked him more, he said car theft was high in Bari. That worried me all week, because we had planned to park the car in Bari while we went across the Adriatic to Montenegro. My worries increased when I read in our travel book that in the past armed guards were necessary to escort tourists around the old town Bari (but apparently not so much now). In the end, we took the car with us on the ferry because I was too scared to leave the car parked for several days in an open lot in Bari.

We arrived at Bari in the afternoon and bought our tickets for the ferry to Bar, Montenegro. The ferry terminal was an interesting spot - it was a colorful collection of cultures waiting to cross the Adriatic. Most were Italian, Greek, Serbian, Kosovar or Albanian.

We were hungry, so we thought we would venture into town looking for a place to eat. That was when we took the picture above. I didn't take too many photos because the area was very depressed. Near the ferry terminal, the area is mostly residential apartments. Another VTer commented on his page that walking around Bari is like walking into someone's living room, and he is right.

We spent time only on the waterfront and perhaps it was the worst there. The waterfront is mainly decaying apartment buildings, hundreds of TV antennae, laundry lines strung from building to building, barbed wire and a brick wall around an elementary school. This is not the place where you will find cheerful sidewalk cafes with bright umbrellas and well-heeled patrons sipping on their Cinzanos, or enotecas with polished wooden counters and a cheery Italian bartender serving you a crisp, chilled pinot grigio.

In fairness to Bari, we did not walk further into the old town, which I'm sure had more to offer, but we gave our body guard the week off, so we thought it was best to stick close to the ferry terminal.