On Route 16, 114 km North West of Brindisi. Bari’s boulevards and blocks of palm trees, the planned 19thC layout, look well-organized, like the prestige capital of a tropical country, but beware, there’s plenty of mugging and other petty crime.

Towards the waterfront the old city of tunnels and lanes remains intact. Prominent among its Romanesque churches is that of San Nicola, the original Santa Claus, built on the spot where sailors of Bari landed his bones in 1087. These bones exude the manna, retailed as a panacea, and every May the saint’s out-sized statue, glittering with precious stones and cloth-of-gold vestment, goes for an airing in the streets and a trip across the harbour.

Bari, largest city and busiest port in the South East, has a Byzantine castle, a promenade 8 km long (but only a modest beach) and a huge multi-faculty university which turns out a high proportion of Italy’s lawyers and politicians. The archaeological museum is important – ancient Greeks and Romans trod this coastline. Art gallery collections reflect the lack of a strong native tradition but in spring Bari hosts a big international arts festival. The most interesting buildings are at the seaward end of Corso Vittore Emanuele II: they include the attractive   art-nouveau Margherita theatre.

The city’s costly modernization provides the most impressive sights: the World Cup football stadium of 1990, dropped from outer space; the town-within-a-town of the Fiera di Levante, the south’s answer to the Trade Fair of Milan; palatial hotels and business parks. In the city centre there are scores of discos, pubs and night spots. From the airport you can fly to many European capitals, including London. Ferries and shipping services link the port with a dozen Adriatic and lonian destinations. Chemical and metallurgical plants do nothing for the environment. (Barium was discovered here.) Bari manufactures Italy’s best-selling drink, Birra Peroni. There are more than 100 grain-milling and pasta-producing establishments and others for fish processing and canning. The fishing industry, on which Bari’s prosperity was founded, continues to function.

Detour – Conversano

On Route 634, 30 km South East of Bari. Among the permanent attractions are a 10thC monastery, an 11thC cathedral and a 12thC castle. You can walk up to the cyclopean walls which enclose the town – they border the ring-road. Note the immense size of the boulders with which they are constructed. They are of incalculable age and unique.

Detour – Ruvo

On Route 98, 34 km West of Bari. A town of significance until the Middle Ages, Ruvo marks time with fortifications of various eras. The Romanesque cathedral is gracefully proportioned and distinguished by its fine rose window. Ruvo’s pride is the Jatta Museum on Piazza Bovio of ceramics, some of the pots and amphorae dating back to 500 BC.