Polignano a Mare

We decided to have an excursion from Conversano to the seaside. The first places we tried were not very inspiring, but eventually we happened upon Polignano a Mare. We parked near the centre of the town and headed towards the pretty, small bay. The picture below gives a view looking towards the beach, while the one above, taken from the road bridge gives a more realistic sense of how popular - and crowded - it was.

We continued across the bridge - after having a disastrous encounter with a melting chocolate ice cream  - and were delighted to find this imposing gateway leading into the old town.

Quite soon on the left was this intriguing building with a bell tower, apparently a church but attached to the Osteria dei Mulini. It turns out to be the Chiesa del Purgatorio - the Church of Purgatory!

 

  

 

We carried on to enter the main square, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. Here we found the Clock Tower, the Palazzo dell'Orologio.  It dates from the 19th century and surprisingly is still wound up by means of ropes.

 

 

To the right was the imposing Church of Santa Maria Asunta (the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary). There was a nice bar opposite, so we adjourned for a refreshing Peroni.

 

 

Here is the interior of the church.

 

 

 

 We may well have missed other delights, but this was a very pleasant short exploration..

Conversano

                                                                The Castle of Conversano

We are on a family holiday in Conversano, an interesting town of 26,000 people to the south of Bari in Puglia, Italy. Much of our time will be spent by the swimming pool, but first we will do some exploring.

The Castle was believed to exist during the Gothic War of the sixth century and underwent significant reconstruction by the Normans in the eleventh century. The interior of the castle hosts an art gallery exhibiting work by Neapolitan artist Paolo Domenico Finoglio: a series of dramatic canvasses spread over several rooms. There is also a museum of clothing elsewhere in the complex.

Leaving the main part of the Castle we turn right to go round to the other side of the building. 

It leads into a lively area with bars and restaurants, with one of the town gates: the Toll Gate of 1338.

On the right of the photo is the campanile of the Church and Monastery of San Benedetto. It is somewhat chaotic, but the cloisters are very attractive. This is the main entrance ...

... and here a section of the cloister.

We head through the Toll Gate and into the Piazza 20 Settembre, to be faced by the Town Hall.

We amble downhill and eventually emerge through another gateway, La Porte del Carmine.

It feels as though this is the end of the old town so we go back through the gate and loop back uphill. We emerge in front of the Cathedral: Santa Maria Assunta Basilica Minore. It seems to have had a recent refurbishment as the interior and exterior are in excellent shape.

This marked the end of our impromptu tour, but I will just add the wonderful Calvary of Santa Maria della Misericordia which dates from the 16th century and later alterations. It is on the edge of the town.

Portugal: Évora - walls

The Porta d'Avis: the only remaining gate

We have just arrived in Évora after a cross-country journey from Condeixa Nova and having checked into our hotel wandered into the main square to get some lunch. Over lunch the idea of walking round the city walls took root and so we headed south along rua de Republica to reach the edge of the old city at what is now a park straddling the walls.

As will become clear, the walls date from different periods. The oldest sections are medieval. The total distance around the perimeter is about 5km. The first section had dramatic corner bastions with small lookout positions on the corners.

We first saw these in Dijon, a good few years ago,  although the Dijon ones were more ornamented.

Before too long we passed the Porto do Raimondo (alas just a gap in the walls rather than an actual gate) and now saw serious-looking battlemented walls in a sort of zig-zag pattern. I have included a man for scale.

After this, there battlements with projecting towers, some with little passageways.

Soon after this we passed the Porta Nuova (also just a hole) and approached the wonderful Prata Acqueduct which extended 9 km to the north to bring fresh water from a small river to Évora. The tallest arches are 23m high. It designed by Francisco de Arruda, who was also responsible for Lisbon's wonderful Belem Tower.

The only disappointment is that it dates only from the 16th century, rather than being Roman as we had fondly imagined. It was restored and altered somewhat in the 17th century during the Spanish and Portuguese War of Restoration (1640 –1668), a period of skirmishes between the two countries.

A little further away from the walls (but beside the acqueduct) was all that remains of the Forta de Santa Antonio, which so far as I can establish, was also built during the Portuguese War of Restoration.

Continuing along the outside of the city the walls things now changed: first the first time there were accretions on the outside. We thought they were pretty scruffy and should be removed forthwith.

We reached Porta d'Avis, almost 12 o'clock in relation to our starting point at 6 o'clock. The plaque over the gate reveals that it is the New Porta d'Avis and was opened in 1804.

The next, particularly imposing section, was right next to a dual carriageway.

After this the sequence of walls was broken by the buildings of the University (see my post Portugal: Évora - City centre)

We rejoined the circuit of walls at about 3 o'clock. From here back to our starting point was the least interesting part of the walk as there had been lots of accretions and a large part was now the site of the city's hospital.

Finally we reached our starting point and admired some more corner turrets ...

... and this imposing pink building with a lovely orange grove in its grounds.

Conditions: cool and rather grey.

Distance: 5 km.

Rating: Four stars. Interesting and satisfying, but not a match for some other examples we have seen e.g. Citadella (Italy), Montagnana (Italy), Kotor (Montenegro), Tallinn (Estonia).

Padua: Cittadella

Our first view of Cittadella

We are on our way to Verona airport for the flight home, but we have spotted the opportunity to stop off on the way at the wonderful walled town of Cittadella, about 30 km north of Padua and midway between Castelfranco del Veneto and Vicenza.

We drive north and soon reach the centre of Cittadella, appropriately at the Porta Padova (Padua Gate). We were enormously impressed by the wonderful walls of Montagnana, but in many ways the walls of Cittadella are more impressive - they are certainly higher.

Cittadella was founded in 1220 as a fortified castle, designed to act as outpost of Padua in the Veneto, with the intention of protecting its borders from assault by Treviso and Vicenza. Nowadays. Cittadella is a town of 20,000 inhabitants - most outside the walls.

We decided to start by walking round the outside of the walls, to get a proper sense of them, They are basically oval, 1461m in circumference with four gates more or less on the cardinal points. This first section, anti-clockwise from the Porta Padova features a rather incongruous modern section.

We soon arrive at the Porta Treviso, with a substantial barbican.

The next section of walls is equally imposing and my photo features the moat which is fed by spring water and encircles the walls. It was once twice as deep and twice as wide as it is now and as well as being part of the defences it was a useful source of fish.

At the third gate, Porta Bassano we spotted some people on the top of the walls and quickly discovered that this is the main point of entry

We climbed up to the Tourist Office and bought our tickets for the Parapet Walkway, which was only opened in 2013 after 20 years of extensive renovation work. It is just wonderful! This is our first view of the area inside the walls. The main feature is the Duomo, built between 1774 and 1826. You can also see one of the two main roads which connect opposite pairs of gates.

Looking out from the parapets we had a good view of this beautifully frescoed house, which we had noticed as we were on Porta Bassano.

The main focus however is the imposing line of walls seen from the inside.

It was also impressive to see how the walkway passes through a whole series of towers.

This was the final quadrant, between the Vicenza and Padova gates. We were interested to notice the hills in the background.

We carried on around the full circuit (you can bail out at Porta Padova) and returned to ground level after a truly wonderful walk around the walls. We walked towards Porta Padova and at the central crossroads admired the inside view of Porta Treviso. There wasn't much to be said about the Duomo.

We headed onwards towards the Porta Padova, along a very quiet street ...

... enlivened at the end by this jolly statue.

Conditions: a bit grey.

Rating: 5 stars.

Note: According to the very helpful leaflet about the walls, other nearby walled towns include Bassano del Grappa, Marostica, Asolo and Castelfranco Veneto. We have been to Castelfranco, and indeed stayed there, but the others might form the basis of another trip!

Milan: Porta Nuova

We have just arrived in Milan and rather than visit the nearby Duomo (the plaza in front of it is jam-packed - it is a Saturday, when presumably the number of tourists is at a peak), we have headed out to Milan's newest attraction, the redevelopment of the Porta Nuova district. We leave the metro at Garibaldi and above is the view that confronts us: two sky scrapers with a plaza between them.

We head towards them from the station and are amused to be confronted by an old style tram: it seems out of place in this temple of modernism.

Before entering the plaza we continue along Corso Como to reach the Porta Nuova itself: a rather splendid arch flanked by a pair of pavilions. (I couldn't get them both in without cluttering the foreground with cars and people.) It dates from 1810 the old city walls when it seems that old city gates were torn down and new gates erected in a ring much further out.

From here, we headed back along Como and up a walkway leading to the plaza, with an intriguing building suggestive of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in the background.

The plaza contains a mixture of shops and bars. What struck us most was that it seemed that most of the people there were Italians rather than tourists like us.

We now enjoyed a close up view of the Unicredit Tower. At 231m (758 ft) it is the tallest building in Italy (for comparison, the Shard in London is 306m high). The architect was César Pelli.

And then walked past this interesting low-rise structure, made of - or at least clad in - wood. It seemed to be empty and we wondered what its purpose would be.

At this point we spotted a sign on the boarding in front of the next area to be developed. It allowed us to discover that we were part of the way along a walking route through the development. This was great as it encouraged us to complete the route.

It seems that Porta Nuova has won an award for redevelopment schemes - and was being compared to the High Line in New York and the Las Ramblas in Barcelona. To be honest, we found this a bit far-fetched. The wonderful High Line, which we walked in 2015, presents itself as a linear park, while the original Rambla goes back a long time in history, while the early 19th century extension northwards from Plaza de Catalunya dates from the early 20th century and was part of a massive development called the Eixample, the extension.

Continuing along the route we passed on the left the pair of green buildings spotted earlier. They are very well named as the Bosco Verticale, or vertical forest. The towers, which are residential, were designed by Boeri Studio and opened in 2014. A remarkable sight.

We followed the walkway to its end. This is the view looking back with corporate towers on the right and houses for the rich on the left.

We retraced our steps and I took one final picture of a rectangular building with a sort exo-skeleton in wood and the Unicredit tower behind it.

Conditions: warm sunshine.

Distance: a couple of miles.

Rating: four and half stars. It is a very impressive development, despite some of my critical comments, and makes an interesting destination for tourists and locals alike. It perhaps just a bit over-hyped.