Andre and Wendy: Old town Bari

Taking advantage this morning of no rain and heading out to explore Old Town in Bari. Our apartment is in Old Town, so basically step outside and we are in it. Outside our apartment we notice that where we had lunch yesterday outside has totally disappeared, a total clean up of the street has been done. We assume later in the day all the restaurants will appear again.

We start off by heading to the information centre to get some ideas on what is happening in the city. There is a military band playing right outside the information centre so watched a bit of that. A tour group from Italy was also watching and doing a little dancing, they moved on after a few calls from their leader with the umbrella.

The tourist information woman gave us a map of Bari, and a map of Puglia region which will come in handy as we travel along. She also told us about a photography exhibit that is finishing today (guess where we go next), and it is also the International Film festival right now finishing tomorrow so we get a book on that to look at.

Off we go to the photography exhibit at the Camera d Commerico building. All of the pictures were by Sergio Strizzi, a famous Roman photographer. The photographs were displayed beautifully, and there was a good short movie on his life and how he got into photography. There were many photos of famous movie stars, and he was on sets many times.

From here we went to the Teatro Petruzzelli which is the Opera House to see if we could purchase tickets for one of the shows. Tomorrows shows are all sold out, this afternoon English movie is sold out, but we did get tickets for a French movie tonight called Amour Ouf. We were told there would be English subtitles. It starts at 8:30PM and is nearly 3 hours long, not sure how much of it I will see, but looking forward to seeing the Opera House which is the 4^th largest theatre in Italy.

Next stop was at the fish market, we had seen it last night, but today we were a little late and only 2 fisherman still there selling. Andre asked about prices, wow they were high, probably tourist prices we were quoted and the fish are still there. There looks to be a beautiful exhibit of the original fish market right beside the tourist information office, but unfortunately it is not open. We could read some of the information from outside, we are sorry we won't get to see it.

Next off we go to visit the Basilica of St. Nicholas. Not surprising there are many Italian school age children visiting. Legend is the Saint passed by Bari on his way to Rome and asked to be buried here. The Pope consecrated the crypt in 1809. Many pilgrims come to visit the church, he is really worshipped here, and the town is known as the Italian town where Santa Claus is buried.

Nearly lunch time now and we head out to try some Traditional Focaccia. Little did we know how popular this place would be, it even had a bouncer named Rino. It is just a small take out bakery, but famous for its Focaccia. There was about a 15 minute wait for us to get in, but the locals all seemed to be able to jump the queue. We brought our 4 pieces home for lunch, reminded us a bit more like the pizza we have at home, pizza everywhere here is super thin crust. There were green olives on the focaccia, we were warned the pits were still in them, don't break your teeth!

A little break and then we head out again for a bit more walking around. We decide to walk over towards the new port, we had only been to the old port so far. The new port must receive cruise ships and ferries, there is a big docking station here. Not too much to see, but it would be a great port to stop on a cruise, old town literally starts right in front of the new port.

Off to visit the street where the woman make pasta and sell it. Mostly we see orecchiette pasta which is what Bari is famous for, looks like little pigs ears. We pick up some to make for supper tonight, 2.50 Euro for .5 kilo. We also bought some little cookies from the woman as well. It is starting to rain a little now so many of the homes have the pasta outside with umbrellas set up over them. We only saw one woman actually outside selling it. Lots of pasta on drying racks. Not sure how much of a tourist thing this really is, but it was fun to see. Hoping for a nice sunny day so we can go back again and hopefully see more vendors outside, and not just the pasta outside.

Back home to get out of the rain as it is starting to come down more now.

Back out again after supper to go to the theatre for the movie. The ticket person told us to get there about 8 for the movie at 8:30. Once again we were not allowed to enter in the main doors, we are sent to the side doors, what? We had the same thing happen when we went to buy tickets earlier today, rude Italian shuffled us away from the main doors. I guess these doors were reserved for VIPs and we didn't count. Anyway by 8:15 there are not even 50 people in this theatre that holds 1,500 people. It is very beautiful inside, and we have great seats to watch the movie. The theatre burnt down in 1991 and reopened in 2009. Still not many people at 8:30 but then lots of photographers start setting up along the sides of the theatre. Not sure when this movie will start. Then the speeches start, and on and on, and in Italian. Some sort of awards are given out, then more speeches by the winners, then posing for the photographers. Finally the movie starts at close to 9:30, did I say the movie is 2 hours and 45 minutes long? The movie was L'Amour Ouf,. Thank goodness the seats were comfortable, but not so comfortable that I fell asleep, maybe the trick is having to read to understand, even Andre said it was hard to understand and he read most of it. At the end we escaped as soon as the credits started rolling, they didn't even turn on the lights, I guess if you are at a movie festival you like to read the movie credits, we passed.

Just after midnight and the streets are full of young people out having what appeared to be a very good time. A fender bender happened as we were walking by, that is going to create a big backup with all the people coming out of the theatre as well. Lots of people milling around until the very end on our street where it is quiet, the restaurants have all been taken down for the night and packed away. Another day in Bari tomorrow, looking forward to more exploring.