Three great days in Bari, Italy

We could never seem to work out being on a ship when the port of Bari, Italy was included. So prior to our trip to check out the new Crystal river boats we decided to visit Bari.

CORATO
Captain Felice lives in the Bari area in Corato and was home and offered to show us around. What a great time we had. We ended up staying at a B&B just around the corner from his home. Corato is a small town about 30 minutes from Bari. It was such a different experience from our life style. We were the only guests at the B&B, had a key and the whole place to ourselves. There was no one in attendance but a number we could call if we needed anything. Like having our own house. Breakfast was at a restaurant one block away. Right next door was a fruit stand and a fish shop. Fresh fish caught at night and sold the next day. Felice lived just around the corner next to the cinema and Zorba's pizza. We ate at Zorba's pizza - it was great. Real thin crust and tasty.

THE PARTY
A highlight was Anna's birthday party and he invited us to come. It was a wow experience. Family, friends more yummy Italian food, more toasts with different wines, just an all out celebration. The noise was amazing. Most spoke no English. There was an English teacher and she explained all the people in the room. About 25 guests. Talk about close Italian families this was exactly what we were witnessing. Ken bonded with Felice's brother in law who spoke no English. However they still had a great time together. Never seen Ken laugh that much and have such fun. I was surrounded by teenage girls who spoke a few words of English as they are taking it in school. They were all adorable. We were definitely welcomed to the celebration and everyone was hugging us with great warmth and sincerity. We will never forget that night. Great timing for us to be there on her birthday.

THE TOWN
He lives in the building he was raised in, his sister lives next door. His other sister is across the street in the home where he was born. All their homes are painted yellow and really stand out. Anna's mother is a block away and Anna's sons are also very close. Everything is in walking distance. Shops, restaurants, church, town hall in a few minutes walk. A totally different way of life. Corato's Main Street has high quality shops and is charming.

THE TOURS . We ran out of time to see everything.

TRIANI
A seaport with a yacht harbor and authentic fishing boats. Fisherman were selling the nights catch and sorting out their nets. Restaurants, coffee shops, stores and lovely public squares. Prominent in the town is the church. Built on top of two older churches. This is the time of the year they do reconstruction so we could see the oldest church.

TRULLI HOMES
The Trulli homes look like little mushroom houses, white limestone topped with round natural stone circular roofs. The best way to describe this is it reminds me in way of St. Paul de Vence in France, just a different type of village. This is an old village complete with the church, stunningly beautiful little houses many with vines over the front door . Now the homes also are stores, restaurants, bars. A wonderful place to visit.

MATERA - A Unesco site.
Been to Cappadocia? Similar but this is HUGE. Matera was used for the movie "The Passion of the Christ" This town dates around 6000 years and held 60,000 people in its heyday. All in cave dwellings carved out of the limestone mountain. In 1950 Mussolini moved everyone out to different housing. It was not healthy living and the only the strongest children survived. Matera has undergone a resurgence and now has restaurants, stores and lots of B&B's. One store has a model of the entire town and it seemed large until I saw the model and realized we had only touched a small part of the town. Absolutely amazing. We stopped at a little restaurant. One of those special moments you will never forget. Tiny, about six tables with fresh flowers on each table. Homemade pasta and goodies made by Joanna who was a lovely woman. The food was so good I wanted to lick my plate. Three cats in the restaurant one with a bow tie and a little kitten. It was all Italian hugs and kisses when we left.

We stayed so long that is was dark when we started back and we heard classical music. Turns out this area houses a music university. Really made it neat with the music. From the top it looked like a fairy land with all the lights. We visited the Cathedral it was a WOW as well.

There is a new area at the top that is charming and has really first class facilities. Be fun to stay here, one hotel looked particularly enticing. All done in the style of the area. Lots of work going on and a big sign stating something like " By 2019 MATERA will be a culture capital".

We ran out of time there were two other places he wanted to show us. The white city and another spot I cannot remember but right on the sea. There is a lot more to see here than I ever realized. If you have a port call in Bari it is hard to decide what to recommend. But probably MATERA would be the best. But it is a lot of steps and walking.

This whole area just does not have the exposure that places like this have in other parts of the world. Felice and Anna were were so kind to share so much of their time with us and show us their wonderful area of Italy.

Sorry this was so long......just an amazing visit and not what I expected.

Pictures coming from Ken.