It really wonderful- and free - cathedral to visit, where Saint Nicholas, yes the real one, lies…read moreburied. This is the original Saint Nick, the inspiration for Santa Claus. Cathedral itself is gorgeous inside, and the two lies in the basement. There are several icons and statues to Saint Nicholas both inside and outside the church. Walk around this area is gorgeous as well, I recommend it in the inner city.

On the eve of the feast day of Saint Nicholas 2025, I started this review. The basilica is a truly…read morewonderful shrine and holy site. Words cannot express what should be experienced in person. In the Middle Ages, commerce drove prosperity, and in the Christian era, the greater the prominence of your local shrine the more the town prospered. Add to this, the rise of Islam, and the systematic destruction of parts of what is now Turkey by militants, and you can see why the relics of St Nicolas were brought to Bari in 1087. The crypt where the Saint is buried is a holy place where even the air itself feels heavenly. Come prepared and respectful. Wear decent clothing. Pray, and be transformed. St Nicholas once ransomed three impoverished young girls from being sold into sex slavery by providing gold coins for their dowry (this is where the gifts and the stockings hung by chimneys came from)... a visit here has the potential to ransom you from this mad world into the person you were meant to be.

We were more impressed than others but we want to see how it was built. Hundreds of years gone by…read moreand many conquering owners. But the castle and moat still exist and you have an imagination to use. You only need a couple hours. Well Done!

We were very underwhelmed with the Castello Svevo. Yes, it's a castle which is intersting in and of…read moreitself, but it's basically an empty shell. There are no original period furnishings and they make it so you can't even look out the windows to see the ocean views. They had a few exhibits on predatory birds and some recreations of sculptures but nothing that was original to the castle. The ruins underneath were interesting but there wasn't much info on them. The ruins under the Cathedral were far more impressive. The film was interesting but very basic. We all felt it was over-priced for 9 euros.

Great place to take a walk along the Adriatic Sea in downtown, Bari!…read more Nice clean and safe city downtown

Porto di Bari is a large docking facility, for both container and cruise ships for the town of…read moreBari. Bari itself is a cute little town, along the seaside Adriatic coast. Our Viking Cruise ship use it as a staging area for the various excursions nearby. Everything is very modern and walkable. There are museums, a water side promenade with a ferris wheel, along with shops, historical buildings and a large basilica size church of St. Nicholas, . It has a large docking facility, for both container and cruise ships for the town. But both the tour buses and our Viking ship were never inconvenienced and the local Italian Customs make it easy and had it all down pat. Nice. See reviews of Basilica St Nicholas, or Basilica San Nicola and the Comune di Alberobello, or Trulli.

It's a port. Connecting ships to land. Easy to get out once gone through TSA type check point…read more Nice shops inside terminal.

In a few words, this is both a tourist trap and a demonstration of the unrestrained greed of the…read morecomune of Castellana Grotte. The tickets to the Grotte are offensively expensive, given what you get; the tour is long (in time and distance) but rushed; there are too many people by half in each group (and too many groups at once: you constantly run into groups going in the opposite direction, creating traffic jams in the narrow passageways; paradoxically, you're glad for the traffic jams because they're essentially the only opportunity you have to stop and look at what's around you); the lighting inside is tenebrous to put it mildly, which renders 80% of the formations impossible to see (in fact, there are lights everywhere; they're just not turned on, apparently because the approximately €3,000 they're raking in per hour aren't sufficient to illuminate the grotto); you're not allowed to take photos inside because the comune owns the rights to images of the grotto (search Google; you'll find hundreds for free); there is no unpaid street parking anywhere near the grotto; the website doesn't explain clearly that groups are admitted only on the hour, meaning that you may find yourself twiddling your thumbs in a cesspit of a town that has NOTHING going for it but a few overpriced restaurants and shops selling tawdry souvenirs; and, to add insult to all that injury, your 18€ ticket doesn't even entitle you to go to the bathroom for free. Puglia ought to be ashamed of itself for this kind of scabrous tourist con, or Castellana Grotte ought to be ashamed, or someone ought to be ashamed. But no one is and, at times, that's travel in Italy in a nutshell.