Bari, Puglia

I know, you’re thinking, “Bari? Why are you in Bari? Wait, where is Bari?” Answering the last question first, Bari is a port city on the Adriatic coast of Italy, across from Albania, and it’s the capital of the Italian region of Puglia, often referred to in English as Apulia. But to make it easy, Puglia is the heel of the Italian “boot.”

“Why” merits a longer answer. This part of our trip is to experience a taste of expat life in southern Italy. Like we did in Spain’s Andalucia in January, we’re visiting this expat hot-spot to see how it “feels” to us. No agenda, no list of must-see/do’s, just six nights in Bari Vechia (old town). Southern Italy has become something of a magnet for American expats, especially those with Italian roots. The region has great weather, great food (‘natch), and decent value for cost of living, including housing.

We arrived on a Wednesday evening, expecting a quiet, work-night scene for a regional capital of 300,000+. So we were surprised by large crowds, closed streets, and a very festive atmosphere. When I asked the taxi driver if this was a normal sight for a late Spring weekday, he said, “no, it’s the festival for San Nicolas.”

Now I knew Bari had an affinity for Saint Nick (San Nicolas de Bari is one of his official titles), and I knew all about Saint Nick in his Santa Claus personna, I even knew he originally was Bishop of Myra, in present-day Turkiye. But his feast day is December 6th, not May 9th. What gives? Seems we stumbled into an interesting historical phenomenon which goes back over 900 years, involving Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox, Turks, Byzantines, Venetians, relics, miracles, and Vladimir Putin. Seriously.

Nicolas was a famous Bishop in Myra, martyred during the Diocletian persecution around 343 Christian Era (CE). He was a Greek living in the Roman Empire, known for his piety and many miracles. Although there are no definitive accounts of his life, his cult emerged after his death. He is beloved by both the Orthodox and Catholic Rites of Christianity, becoming the basis for Santa Claus in the latter, while there are more churches dedicated to him in Moscow than any other Orthodox saint. He is the patron saint of sailors, prostitutes, repentant thieves, brewers, pawn-brokers, and students, groups which are certainly not mutually exclusive.

In 1054 CE the Church split into competing Catholic and Orthodox branches in the Great Schism, and in 1087 the Seljuk Turks overran the Bishopric of Myra, capturing the tomb of Saint Nick. A group of merchants and sailors in Bari, Italy, decided to raid and return (most of, Venetians later grabbed the rest) the saint’s remains to Christian hands. They brought them back to Bari on May 9th, establishing a “feast of the translation” (i.e., transportation, which sounds so much better than “theft”) at a new church in Bari. We had wandered into the middle of that feast.

And what a feast. Dignitaries from East and West attend, this year the biggest being the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. The statue of San Nicolas is collected up by the faithful and processed down to the docks, where sailors take it out for a night at sea. The next day, they re-enact the “translation” and the faithful gather to welcome their beloved saint home. The statue has a “skirt” attached to it (covering up the men carrying it) so it looks like it “walks” up from the port to the basilica. It moves to a spot on a promenade where it stays while masses of Thanksgiving are held in the Basilica Catholic Church upstairs and the Orthodox Crypt Church below, where the saint’s remains, well, remain. During the final mass, a priest crawls under the altar to the tomb containing the remains, unlocks it, and draws out: water. Although the box containing the bones is sealed, some form of liquid, called manna by the faithful, has been accumulating since the saint died. Of course this manna has miraculous properties and is diluted and widely shared among the believers.

What’s really a miracle to me is the way Catholic and Orthodox get along so well during all this, whereas in Jerusalem and elsewhere they are usually at each other’s ecclesiastical throats. For example, even Putin was allowed to make a pilgrimage to Bari in 2007! So Bari is full of Orthodox and Catholic faithful.

Bari Vecchia, where we stayed, is a typical medieval maze of tiny streets, repurposed castles, palaces and churches, with a blossoming harbor and new city spreading out landward from the small peninsula. The entire area is easily walkable: mostly flat, and our evening passeggiata often went completely around the seafront. There are oodles of cafes serving up espresso, osterias for seafood, pizzerias for focaccia barese. The locals are especially proud of their local pasta, called orecchiette or little ears. Women still set up tables in the narrow streets and make the pasta fresh while you watch. We were impressed with the local Primitivo and Negroamare red varietal wines. The pasta and focaccia were excellent; we have yet to find pulpo (octopus) which rivals what we find in Mexico, but the search goes on!

In addition to all that Saint Nick history, Bari has a surfeit of other historical regimes. Its earliest traces are Phoenician and Greek, then Roman, Byzantine, Norman, and finally Spanish, with each group leaving a mark architecturally. Under the Aragonese Queen Isabella, Bari passed to her daughter Bona Sforza as Duchess. She later married and outlived King Sigismund the Old of Poland, holding both titles (Queen of Poland and Duchess of Bari, among others) at the same time. So much for the patriarchy.

We took two day trips from Bari: thirty minutes south (on the local train) to Polignano a Mare, and forty minutes north to Trani. We wanted to see what smaller, less touristy towns in the area were like. Polignano is a small town famous for its cliffs, and Red Bull even sponsors a cliff diving event there every year. Trani has a bustling port and a fantastic cathedral.

To be honest, the entire coast of Puglia is filled with small-to-medium sized towns that are very similar. Each has a small beach or port area, an old city, then a newer development (usually around the main train station) which consists of apartment blocks. Weekend or Summer vacation apartments for Italians stretch out from there. I would be hard-pressed to tell you which to select to visit; all have something to offer, but there isn’t a lot to distinguish between them in my opinion.

Puglia has been a tourist destination for Italians–looking for a quiet, inexpensive beach/shore trip–for a long time. It delivers on that promise, and remains less expensive, less pretentious (I’m looking at you, Amalfi coast), but still pleasant. Whether it has what it takes to be right as an expat haven for us? That’s a question still pending!