Apulia - Advice for your tour.
Territory: This region forms the easternmost part of the peninsula and has a long coastline, facing the Ionian and the Adriatic Seas. Apulia is essentially a flatland with wide arid expanses, terraces and table-lands poor in water. The Murgia highland and the coast present impressive karst formations (grottoes and “Doline” hollows). The coasts are essentially high and, in the Gargano district, plunge steep into the sea; in other areas, they are sandy or rocky, but usually flat.
Cities: Bari is the regional capital. Brindisi, Foggia, Lecce and Taranto are the capitals of the respective provinces.
Art: The megalithic monuments (Dolmens and Menhirs) are numerous and interesting. Canne della Battaglia and Ignazia are two great archaeologic complexes. The Roman remains are noteworthy throughout the region. The Romanesque art produced magnificent architectural works, such as the cathedrals of Bari, Trani, Barletta. Molfetta, Bitonto, Ruvo di Puglia. Interesting and majestic castles in the thirteenth-century Byzantine-Arab style can be found in Bari, Gioia del Colle, Lucera and Castel del Monte. The Baroque attained great splendor and left some impressive examples, especially in Lecce.
Museums: In Bari, tourists can visit the Palace of the University, which includes the important Archaeologic Museum with relics of the Neolithic and Bronze Age, funeral urns, ceramics and bronze from the necropolis. Lecce has the Provincial Museum, with sculptures and Roman architectural remains, and the Museum of the Arts of the Folk Traditions of Salento. Collections of coins, vases and bronzes are preserved in the Provincial Archaeologic Museum of Brindisi. The National Museum of Taranto is the most important for the history of Magna Graecia. In Foggia: the Civic Museum, with the prehistoric section and an interesting paleochristian epigraph, and the Pinacoteca, which houses works of nineteenth and twentieth-century local masters.
To be visited: The Gargano area and the coastline from Brindisi to Santa Maria di Leuca; Alberobello with its typical “trulli” houses.
Castel del Monte. When the Emperor Frederick II built this castle near Bari in the 13th century, he imbued it with symbolic significance, as reflected in the location, the mathematical and astronomical precision of the layout and the perfectly regular shape. A unique piece of medieval military architecture, Castel del Monte is a successful blend of elements from classical antiquity, the Islamic Orient and north European Cistercian Gothic.
The Trulli of Alberobello. The trulli, limestone dwellings found in the southern region of Puglia, are remarkable examples of drywall (mortarless) construction, a prehistoric building technique still in use in this region. The trulli are made of roughly worked limestone boulders collected from neighbouring fields. Characteristically, they feature pyramidal, domed or conical roofs built up of corbelled limestone slabs.
Source: Italian Government Tourist Board - North America - www.italiantourism.com
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