BOOMTOWN Bari is Back | Travel + Leisure

BOOMTOWN Bari is Back

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Travelers wanting proof that Bari, the capital of Puglia, is no longer also the region's purse-snatching and car-break-in capital should talk to Roberta Guerra Watkins. In 1998, Watkins—the well-born part owner of the hotel Il Melograno—moved to the city with her Canadian husband and their two children to participate in Bari's great civic renaissance. In the years before that, she says, she wouldn't have set foot in the place without a bodyguard.

"Thanks to our mayor, who envisions Bari as a kind of Italian Barcelona, everything has changed," notes Watkins. "The Old Town, where I live, used to be a ghetto, like the Bronx or Naples, only worse. If you dared go in, you were doomed to be robbed. But after an ambitious cleanup campaign, and commercial initiatives that gave breaks to young people starting small businesses, the Città Vecchia is now full of restaurants, shops, and cafés. It's unrecognizable."

The Cattedrale di San Sabino and Basilica di San Nicolaare two of the most important examples of Romanesque architecture in Italy. The Old Town is a warren of immaculate cobblestoned alleyways like those in a Moroccan medina. The street life is rich, not to mention entertaining. The good women of the Città Vecchia think nothing of doing their ironing, rolling their pasta, and plucking their mustaches outside their front doors.

Bari makes a perfect day trip from Monopoli, Fasano, or Savelletri di Fasano. (It's also where you fly to from Milan, Rome, or London.) None of the city's hotels match the thrill of staying in a masseria, but if you want to spend the night, look no further than the Palace Hotel Bari (13 Via Lombardi; 39-080/521-6551; www.palacehotelbari.it; doubles from $248).

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