Things to Do in Murattiano

Murattiano is the part of Bari that Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law and briefly King of Naples, ordered built in 1813. The grid he imposed on the city still shapes everything here. Wide, rational boulevards run at right angles to each other. Pale limestone palazzi line them; wrought-iron balconies drip bougainvillea in summer and collect the salt breeze off the Adriatic year-round. This is the commercial and civic spine of the city. Department stores and boutiques crowd Via Sparano. Civil servants move purposefully between the prefecture and the law courts. The Teatro Petruzzelli, one of the largest opera houses in Italy, gutted by arson in 1991 and painstakingly rebuilt by 2009, presides over the whole scene with appropriate grandeur. The rhythm of Murattiano is distinctly southern Italian. It moves at exactly the speed it wants to. The mid-morning caffè ritual is non-negotiable. Stand at a marble counter, espresso gone in two sips, a warm piece of focaccia barese glistening with olive oil pressed into your hand. By two in the afternoon the shutters come down. The streets go quiet in a way that surprises visitors who expect a capital city to keep running. Then, as the heat softens around six, the passeggiata begins. The slow communal promenade rolls along Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and down toward the lungomare. The smell of frying fish and woodsmoke drifts up from restaurants beginning their evening service. The district draws a mix of locals, day-trippers, and lingering travelers. Locals go about their lives. Day-trippers use it as a base for the old town a short walk north. A growing number of travelers have figured out that Puglia rewards those who linger. Murattiano is where you'll find Bari at its most self-possessed. It is not performing for tourists. It is not trying to be Naples or Rome. It just goes about its business in that particular Barese way.

Murattiano's grid layout makes it easy to navigate on foot, most of the district's main points of interest are within a fifteen-minute walk of each other. The city's bus network serves the main arteries, with stops along Corso Cavour and Corso Vittorio Emanuele II connecting Murattiano to the train station and the port. Bari Centrale station sits at the southern edge of the district and provides straightforward rail connections to the rest of Puglia; Lecce, Taranto, and Brindisi are all reachable in under two hours. Taxis are available from the ranks near the station and around Piazza Umberto I, and tend to be reasonably priced for a southern Italian city. The old town (Bari Vecchia) is an easy ten-minute walk north from the heart of Murattiano, there's no reason to take any form of transport between the two. Walk it. Enjoy the stroll.