Bari is the main city of Puglia, a big port on the Adriatic coast. On many corners in the old quarter’s maze of little alleys in the old part of the city, images of Saint Nicholas or of Mary gaze out from behind the glass and flowers of small street shrines. As befits the city’s patron saint, Saint Nicholas has his Badilica San Nicola which attracts countless pilgrims. So many that they prevented us from looking in the crypt for the saint’s bones that fishermen stole from (now) Turkey in 1087 ad.
Near the big port area there is an excellent archaeological collection from prehistoric, to medieval times in a former monastery. Magna Grecia pottery! I love it.
In ancient times Lapigian peoples developed three main cultures on the Apulian coast, later colonised by Greeks from the 8th c bc. Then romans took over what they called Magna Grecia until their empire collapsed.
The Daunians ( the northern of the three original groups) made pottery adorned with little heads. Originally simple terracotta vessels, after the Greek culture mixed in, by the 3rd c bc pots had complicated figures attached…Strange and beautiful…Daunian askos vessels.
