Postcards from Polignano 🖼⛪️🥘

The old town of Polignano perched on the cliff

Gran Vaso, from Polignano, Metropolitan Museum of New York

Polignano a Mare is a town on the Apulian Adriatic coast with a long history linked to the peculiar geographical characteristics of the place. The first human settlements date back to the Neolithic, turned in the fourth century BC. Into a Greek colony, probably the Apulian Neapolis, with flourishing trade with other areas of Magna Graecia. One of the most beautiful large polychrome vases of this era, now exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of New York, was found in 1785 in a tomb excavated in Polignano. The bridge over the Via Traiana, which crosses a depression just north of the historic center, built by the Romans, is still in operation, a witness of the strategic role played by this place along trade and military routes in ancient times.

Thanks to the enhancement of the historic center and the expansion of local tourist hospitality facilities, in recent years Polignano has seen a spectacular flowering of tourism that is no longer even linked to summer seasonality. One of the events regularly hosted in the city is the Italian leg of the Red Bull World Championship of diving from great heights.

Sophisticated cuisine at restaurant Jamantè in Polignano

The offer in Polignano of good restaurants, especially for seafood, is proportional to the regular influx of tourists and visitors from neighboring cities, who appreciate the concentration in the historic center of small restaurants and local craft shops. Among my favorites, Jamantè, Porta Picc and La trattoria della Nonna, the first one a classy gourmet and the last two family-run restaurants, which offer creative cuisine, based on the great variety of fresh products and on the rich local culinary traditions, with references to modern and sophisticated preparations.

Apulia has plenty to offer to the curious tourist with historic towns, good food and local artisan work to be brought back home as souvenir. In this series of travel postcards I have also been posting on other places along the central coast of Puglia, around the main city of Bari, one town to the north, Barletta, and two smaller towns further south, Mola di Bari and Monopoli. The brief YouTube video below is a brief introduction to the quiet beauties of Polignano.