The City of Two Seas: A Taranto Tour

Taranto is the gateway to the Maldives of Italy and its beautiful coastlines, and boasts not centuries, but millennia of history and culture. On this walking tour, you‘ll find out how this jewel of southern Italy has been shaped by the sea, and retains a deep connection to this day.

The tour starts at Ponte di Pietra bridge, overlooking the open Ionian Sea. You‘ll head to Taranto‘s historical center which many cultures have called home, where I‘ll show you the imposing city gate, the ancient gate of Naples, Porta Napoli. You‘ll then cross Ponte di Porta Napoli, a stone bridge over two seas, and wind your way through the city‘s medieval roads.

As you make your way to the new city, you‘ll hear about the dark decades of the Fascist regime at Palazzo del Governo, a building inaugurated by Benito Mussolini himself. I‘ll also tell you about Risorgimento, the glory days of Italian unification. The tour ends in the middle of the Garibaldi Gardens, where you‘ll hear about the celebrated hero, General Garibaldi, and how the British named a biscuit after him.

On this 45-minute tour, you‘ll have the opportunity to:

• Cross one of the few lateral rotating bridges in Europe, as you leave the island that is the city’s historical center behind
• Discover centuries upon centuries of history and culture, from Taranto‘s struggle against Roman domination, to stories about the new Eastern Roman Empire and the kingdoms of the Normans and the Spanish Araginese
• Stand in Piazza Fontana and admire its ancient clock tower, and visit the ethnographic museum at Palazzo Pantaleo, with its impressive frescoes
• Walk along the seafront and hear about Taranto’s dolphins, and peek down the city’s narrowest street, the 42cm lovers‘ lane
• Visit the oldest Romanesque church in Puglia and see Saint Catald, the Irish patron saint of Taranto
• Pop into Museo Ipogeo, a museum where you can learn about the foundations of Taranto‘s Spartan past
• See the remains of a Greek temple to Poseidon, the oldest in Magna Graecia
• View the imposing castle that once housed Aragonese kings, Sant Angelo, a prison, and now a Navy office

By the end of the tour, you‘ll come to know several of the civilizations that called Taranto their home, all of them deeply connected to the sea and the spirit we share with them.