Bari's big moment

The Star

14-07-2025

ANTONIO Maria Vasile began working two years ago to connect the United States directly with Puglia, the heel of Italy's boot where many Italian Americans can trace their heritage.
Vasile, the head of Puglia's airports, tried to convince carriers that they should set their sights not on Naples or Sicily but on Bari, arguing that the regional capital offers rich culture, history and cuisine worthy of their time and money.
'We don't want to be relegated to being the south,' he said, referring to deeply ingrained biases in Italy against the more economically disadvantaged regions south of Rome.
His efforts paid off late last year, when Italian carrier Neos announced direct flights between Bari and New York's Kennedy Airport beginning the first week of June, the first-ever route linking Puglia to the United States. The seasonal flights will run once a week through October.
Vasile sees opportunities for all of Puglia, from farmhouse inns to seaside villages, but also for his city of 330,000 people.
Vasile, the head of Puglia's airports, sees opportunities for all of Puglia, from farmhouse inns to seaside villages, but also for his city of about 330,000 people. — Gianni Cipriano/The New York Times
The port city on the Adriatic was once little more than a stopover, a gateway to the resplendent beach towns of southern Puglia or Greece via ferry. Bari was too sleepy and sketchy for most tourists, its old town so dangerous that even residents considered it off-limits.
Puglia's many charms – a stunning coastline, beautiful architecture, relaxed feel – turned the region into a buzzy destination first. Regulars include Madonna, Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep. Lamborghinis await in the rental car garage. Last year, Italy picked Puglia for the G7 summit, hosting dignitaries in the luxury resort of Borgo Egnazia.
Now Bari, with its 14.5km seafront promenade and the tomb of the real St Nicholas, is beginning to capitalise on the region's growing appeal, its old days of mob crime mostly behind it.
'This great appeal to tourists has made the people of Bari rediscover a little bit of pride,' mayor Vito Leccese said.
'The more tourists come, the more important we feel, because it means our city is well-liked.'
Yet there is also some trepidation among residents that – although Bari is hardly Florence, Rome or Venice – it, too, could be overrun by tourists, or at least profoundly reshaped by them. Does a city that only recently remade its identity now risk losing it?
A man riding his bicycle through Piazza Mercantile in Bari. Foreigners – and residents – long avoided Bari's old town, which had been plagued by mob crime and now, with direct flights from the United States starting, residents are excited but wary. — Gianni Cipriano/The New York Times
Tourists walking by the Norman-Swabian Castle, built around 1132 by Norman King Roger II, in Bari. — Gianni Cipriano/The New York Times
Rents have surged in the city centre as many landlords have turned their properties into short-term rentals.
Older people on fixed incomes have had to move farther away.
So have students of the city's two universities, who represent the very demographic that local leaders say they want to keep, to help reverse decades of brain drain that have affected all of Italy, especially the south, as young people seek better jobs elsewhere.
'Bari is seen as a destination you pass through and then leave,' Mery Coppolecchia, a 22-year-old political science student, said as she sat in a bustling central plaza on the university's urban campus.
'It's a shame because if graduates and students don't stay here, then who does?'
Even if they stay, tourism 'is not something stable', said Gabriele Tedesco, 21, a law student, noting that many hospitality jobs are seasonal or low paying.
'It is not something that can sustain, even in the long term, a city's economy.'
For tourism to fuel economic development, local governments would also have to invest in public transportation to benefit residents and businesses, said Maria Grazia Cito, an adjunct professor of applied economics and tourism in Bari.
It takes her an hour to drive into the city for work – or three hours on public transit. 'Residents should come first,' she said, or the city could lose its character.
(Think Venice, which is charging a fee to day trippers who pack the city's antiquated streets, crowding out residents.)
'It's like Disneyland. It loses all its authenticity,' she said.
Officials know they have much to do.
'If you want to rent a Ferrari in the airports of Puglia, it is not a problem,' said Vasile. 'The problem is finding a bus.'
Bari has come so far that it is easy to be optimistic about its future, said Gianrico Carofiglio, a novelist and former anti-mafia prosecutor.
He recalled how he avoided certain neighbourhoods in his youth because they were so crime-ridden. By the time his own daughter was a teenager, she was safe walking alone most anywhere at night.
'The city was transformed, from all points of view,' he said. More shops and cafes. More culture, including an annual film festival. More writers like him who set much of their work in Bari or Puglia.
'It was as if something had been uncorked and the city became an interesting place, full of life and opportunities – obviously with many problems still,' said Carofiglio, who now lives in Rome, crediting several capable administrations, and police officers and prosecutors like himself, for helping to turn around Bari.
'But it is a place where people come and are amazed.'
Nunzia Capito making home-made ear-shaped orecchiette pasta which she sells along Arco Basso in Bari. — Gianni Cipriano/The New York Times
The nightlife has grown so much that it has become a point of contention.
When hundreds of young revellers stayed out dancing and singing in the streets near the city centre during the festival of St Nicholas recently, some residents threw buckets of water from their balconies to shoo them away.
Most radically changed is Bari Vecchia, or Old Bari, the historic centre, once ruled by criminal clans. Now, walking tours take visitors to two grand churches: the cathedral and the Basilica of St Nicholas.
Residents and tourists line up outside a hole-in-the-wall bakery for Bari-style focaccia. And foreigners join the throng of visitors to Arco Basso street, where women sell ear-shaped orecchiette pasta despite accusations that some sell store-bought goods and the periodic crackdowns on local restaurants that buy untraceable pasta.
For now, Vasile understands that most of Bari's tourism will be centred on the warmest months – unlike Rome and Venice, which have plenty of visitors all year. Tourism slows so much in Bari's winter that many of its souvenir shops were still shut down in this season's waning days.
Standing near the airport tarmac with a view of the Adriatic during that visitor lull, Vasile allowed himself to imagine a future in which Bari becomes a year-round destination. The flights from New York, he hopes, could just be the start.
'We have become aware of new possibilities,' he said. — ©2025 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.