Mola di Bari · Polignano a Mare · Monopoli · BA
Three centres on the coast south of Bari, all in the province of Bari, which, in our synthesis of the sources, have features in common: an old core enclosed by walls, a harbour or a cliff, a defence turned towards the sea. The thread holds up on the documents. Against the pirates, according to the italia.it portal, the castle of Mola was built; exposed to pirates was seafaring Monopoli in the Byzantine and Norman age, according to the Ministry of Culture's record; and according to the ministerial records Polignano was under Venice between 1494 and 1530, Monopoli from 1456 and then, from 1509, under Spain. It is a journey for those who want to read the coast through its stones: castles, churches, gates. The sources on Monopoli and Polignano are richer than those on Mola, and the account follows their weight.
At a glance
Duration. 3 days.
The route
Day 1 — Mola di Bari
You begin at the castle, on the lungomare Dalmazia. The ministerial catalogue record describes it in carparo tuff, with an inner courtyard and the entrance beneath a portal with a depressed arch opening onto the south bastion; the first document naming it is from 1123, the building is owned by the municipality and its masonry is recorded as being in mediocre condition. The reason lies in the sea: italia.it writes that it was built precisely as a fortress against pirates, and the ministerial record registers works in 1508. The historic centre, according to the Ministry's record, coincides with the old medieval core, and its walls were reinforced under Charles V. In via San Nicola, at the corner of via Vittorio Veneto, stands the Chiesa Matrice di San Nicola, built by a diploma of Charles I of Anjou on the ruins of another church and consecrated in 1618; its record recalls the portal on caryatids, the rose window and, under the presbytery, a crypt that was a hypogeum for burials. In piazza XX Settembre the Palazzo Alberotanza, also called Palazzo Roberti, dates from 1783, to a design by Vincenzo Ruffo. The rest of the town has weaker sources: according to Britannica crusaders left from here in the Middle Ages and tanneries and soap and button factories worked here; italia.it calls it the second fishing fleet of the province and names the Festa della Madonna d'Altomare and the Sagra del Polpo, without dates. The municipal coat of arms, says the statute, bears San Michele striking the dragon. The day after, the cliff.
Day 2 — Polignano a Mare
Polignano stands, according to italia.it, on the edge of a high cliff; the ministerial record of the historic centre measures the promontory at about 24 metres above the sea, a little over 30 km south of Bari, facing east. The territory has been inhabited for a long time: the same record notes traces of the Palaeolithic in the locality of Ripagnola and more numerous Neolithic remains. It is believed, again according to the record, that a Peucetian Neapolis, a sub-colony of Syracuse, arose here in the 4th century BC, and that the centre then became a statio of the via Traiana between Rome and Brindisi: it is that road that explains the bridge over Lama Monachile, which italia.it says was built on a Roman bridge of the Traiana. Lama Monachile is the small beach that divides the cliff in two, at the end of the lanes. You enter the town through the Arco Marchesale, the Porta Grande, which italia.it dates to the sixteenth century and indicates as the only access until 1780; according to the Ministry's record the gate and a stretch of wall on piazza Garibaldi are what remains of the walls of the marquisal age, after the centre had twice been under Venice between 1494 and 1530. On 28 November 1786 Ferdinand IV approved the new borgo, extending towards Monopoli and towards Mola. Beneath the cliff the sea has carved some twenty caves, writes italia.it, and in the Ardito cave it has left a natural column. In the former municipal slaughterhouse, near the south seafront, is the museum dedicated to Pino Pascali, born here in 1935 and died in 1968, established in 1998; the Ministry's page, undated, gives opening hours from Wednesday to Sunday, from 16 to 20, to be verified. Outside the centre, the village of San Vito preserves an abbey that the FAI says was in all probability founded in the 10th century by Basilian monks, followed by the Benedictines; a legend links it to the relics of the saint brought from Salerno. Again according to the FAI, having passed to the Regio Demanio in 1785, it was sold by the State in 1866 to the marquises La Greca, still the owners: it is private property, visits should be verified. In the fields around, the Slow Food Foundation protects the Polignano carrots, multicoloured, sown between 15 August and 15 September from seeds kept by families. The day after, Monopoli.
Day 3 — Monopoli
The harbour enters the historic centre, with buildings constructed on the quays: so the Ministry's record describes it, which also explains the medieval repopulation with the exiles from destroyed Egnazia. In the 11th century the old natural harbour silted up, for unclear reasons, and Monopoli became an episcopal see; in 1456 the Venetians occupied it, in 1509 the Spanish. Until the nineteenth century, the record writes again, it was the main centre for the export of oil of the Kingdom of Naples, and italia.it links the eighteenth-century rebuilding of many churches to the profits of trade. The cathedral, founded in 1107 and rebuilt in the eighteenth century, keeps a Byzantine icon, the Madonna della Madia, which the legend collected by italia.it has arriving from the sea on a pile of logs, later used for the roof trusses. Wikipedia records the collapse of the surviving bell tower in 1686, with forty dead. In vico Amalfitano the church of Santa Maria degli Amalfitani, attested in 1179, was built according to the Ministry by vow of the sailors of Amalfi; on the outer apse it has columns with Romanesque capitals and a cornice with fantastic animals and grotesque masks, and an inscription in the crypt tells that in 1509, seeing the ship in danger of shipwreck, the sailors invoked the Virgin and the sea calmed. On the promontory of Punta Pinna the castle of Charles V incorporates, according to the ministerial record, the church of San Nicola de Pinna; museionline notes there a stone coat of arms with the date 1552 and the name of the viceroy Don Pedro di Toledo. Palazzo Palmieri, according to italia.it, has more than a hundred rooms and was an Istituto d'Arte until 1990; the municipality mentions the air-raid shelters of piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, with a permanent exhibition, and the rock church of the Spirito Santo, from the 10th century. On a peninsula between two inlets, the castle of Santo Stefano, from 1086 according to italia.it, is today private: visits should be verified. The journey, in our proposal, ends at the harbour.
DRAFT of 2026-11-08 · local only · gate run: PASSES WITH CORRECTIONS, 13 defects corrected · not approved