Puglia Photo Pages

Puglia is a very long state with surprisingly big challenging to navigate towns, so bear this in mind when planning ambitious daily routes and the best base locations!

Puglian Restaurants and Hotels

Links to Hotels in Puglia

Troia & its Cattedrale - Romanesque gem of North Puglia

In the Gargano (around Monte Sant'Angelo)

More Images from Monte Sant'Angelo

San Leonardo di Siponto

TROIA CATTEDRALE (1100s)

PHOTOS OF THE NORTH WEST LOWER FACADE AND BRONZE DOOR

PHOTOS OF THE NORTH WEST UPPER FACADE AND ROSONE

PHOTOS OF THE APSE AND SIDE DOOS

PHOTOS OF THE INSIDE OF THE CATTEDRALE

Castel del Monte and Holy Roman Emperor (and King of Sicily and Jerusalem) Frederick II

Barletta and the only Byzantine Emperor left in the World

TRANI
Norman Cathedral (2003)	Norman Cathedral (2006)
Bronze Doors of Trani Cattedrale (c1180)
Medieval Porto (2003)	Medieval Porto (2006)
Templar Church of Ognissanti	Frederick II's Castello at Trani
Around Trani (including Monasterio di Collona)	Trani Restaurants & Hotel

Bitonto Cattedrale - the best of the lot

Molfetta

BITONTO CATTEDRALE (1100s)

PHOTOS OF THE WEST (ACTUALLY NORTH WEST) FACADE

PHOTOS OF THE SOUTHERN FACADE

PHOTOS OF THE APSE AND EAST END

PHOTOS OF THE INSIDE OF THE CATTEDRALE

PHOTOS OF THE CRYPT AND MUSEUM UNDER THE NAVE

Ruvo di Puglia

Trulli Alberabello

Abbey Church of Santa Maria di Cerrate (near Lecce)

Lecce - Baroque Mastercity

Otranto Cattedrale Mosaics Facade

Lunch at Ristorante Vico Lopez

Basilica di Santa Caterina d'Alessandria (Galatina)

Sadly we missed out on Gallipoli and the Gulf Coast, if only because of the possibility of .....

Gallipoli-Style Jumbo Prawns, or Gamberoni alla Gallipolina

To serve 4:

4 1/2 pounds (2 k) Gamberoni

1 quart (1 liter) good extravirgin olive oil (you'll likely not need all)

6 2/3 pounds (3 k) kosher salt

Salt, pepper, and whatever herbs you might like, at table

Preheat your oven to 400 F (200 C).

Line the bottom of a fairly deep, broad pot with a third of the salt. Wash the prawns well, pat them dry, and lay them out on the salt layer. Cover them with the remaining salt, and roast them for 15-20 minutes.

While they're roasting, give your diners 4 small bowls filled part way with oil, and have them season their oil as they prefer. Bring the roasted prawns to the table still encased in salt; break open the crust, remove the first round of shellfish, and enjoy, dipping the prawns into the seasoned oil; your diners can eat at their own pace, while the salt in the roasting pan will keep the prawns hot. (from About Italian Cuisine)

There is also an outstanding and famous local Prawn Soup according to Italian foodie friends.

Leuca and the East Coast

Puglia (the heel of Italy) and the neighbouring states of Basilicata (instep) and Calabria (toe and top of foot) have an earlier story as home to important colonies in the Magna Graecia world of the 700s / 200s BC. In fact the Greek trading ports and towns extended to just north of Naples and around most of the coast of Sicily.

PYTHAGORAS (569 BC - c479 BC (90))

Pythagoras was born in Samos, a Greek island just off present day Turkish Kusadasi, in 569 BC. He lived in Samos, Egypt, Babylon (as a prisoner), then Samos again, but by around 518 BC and for his remaining 40 odd years he was to be found in Calabria (in Crotone to be precise, which is in a front of instep coastal position) where he established several large communities dedicated to the pursuit of his philosophical ideas.

Of course Pythagoras today is one of the best known of the ancient Greeks, because of his theory that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides of a right angled triangle. Actually this relationship had been "known" empirically for at least a thousand years, but Pythagoras' break through was to explain it in a new language of abstract terms that could be generalised. (Thought: How did one square large numbers in a time before Hindu / Arab numerals and the zero had come along?)

This was only the tip of an iceberg that was basically philosophical, but had many practical observations to offer in the realms of mathematics, astronomy and music. Amongst these was the first reasoned understanding that the earth was spherical (though not that it revolved around the sun), and the "dependence of the dynamics of world structure on the interaction of contraries, or pairs of opposites" (a subject dear to the heart of Dom Paradox).

An interesting and accessible account of the man and his ideas is to be found here

These artefacts from the age of Magna Graecia - a painted terracotta head with gold diadem, and another gold diadem (with Herculean knot) - can both be seen in the National Archaeological Museum of the chief Ionian town of Taranto.

Links to other Paradoxplace pages

All original material © Adrian Fletcher 2000-08 - The contents may not be hotlinked, or reproduced without permission.