Bari Skyline and other Bari, Italy General Tips

Favorite Thing: This is Bari's skyline. I took this picture as we were arriving at the port after crossing the Adriatic from Montenegro on an overnight trip. As you can see, Bari is flat. In fact, most of Puglia, the region in which Bari is located, is flat. At the most, Puglia has gentle rolling hills with alfalfa fields and vineyards once you travel away from the city.

The most prominent feature of the Bari skyline is the very tall lighthouse. Another prominent structure is the the Castello Svevo, a brooding medieval fortress dating to Norman times. Other than that, the skyline consists mainly of residential apartments.


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Favorite Thing: You can't see it in this picture, but when we were driving out of Bari, we drove around a huge sports stadium. The stadium is nicknamed "Bambino Stadium," which had been built by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as a reward to the citizens for producing the most babies in a specified period of time.

I wonder if the Italian men knew beforehand that they would be rewarded with a new sports stadium if Bari produced the most babies? If they did, I can only imagine what Bari must have been like during this "specified period of time."


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Favorite Thing: Here's a fact I didn't know until I visited Bari, Italy. Bari was actually occupied by British and American forces during World War II. Bari was used as a strategic port by the Allies for supplies used to conduct raids in other parts of Italy and Germany.

On December 2, 1943, the Luftwaffte launched an air attack on Bari. Traditional bombs and mustard gas bombs were dropped on the city. The raid resulted in more than 1,000 casualties, including hundreds of deaths from the mustard gas, and the sinking of 17 Allied ships. Much of the old town Bari, which is close to the port, was reduced to rubble.

The Bari raid was dubbed "the second Pearl Harbor" and became known as one of the most notable Luftwaffe exploits of the war. It was also the only poisonous gas incident of World War II.


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Fondest Memory: This was the best part of my trip to Bari.

The ferry ride from Bar, Montenegro to Bari, Italy is an overnight trip with an estimated arrival time at Bari of 7:00 am. When our ferry was about one hour outside Bari, I woke up, showered in the nice little shower we had in our cabin, then went upstairs to the cafeteria and ordered a Turkish coffee. I took my Turkish coffee out to the back deck and soaked in the warm early morning Mediterranean sun. This was so pleasant, I was almost sorry when it was announced that we were about to arrive at port.

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