A bit too much like an American shopping mall. Small food court and plenty of small bars. The mall…read morehas free WIFI and plenty of seating outside of the stores. Been there several times with friends and they were all impressed by the number of name brand stores. COOP is a food shoppers paradise. Plenty of free parking. Can be a bit busy on weekends in December, but have never seen the parking lot full. It's a 10 minute drive from the Mofetta exit on the autostrada.

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.