fish market {bari}

We’ve been trying to get down to Bari for the last month. We usually go about every three or four months or so, since Domenico is from Bari and his mother still lives there. It’s about a four and a half hour drive down from Rome, so it’s not such a huge trip.

But for two weekends in a row we were snowed out. Or in. Take your pick. There was the one weekend that I’ve posted about when we couldn’t get out of Rome. And then the following weekend the snow landed mostly on the road that we would have taken to cross the Apennines. Yes, in Italy. Go figure.

But we finally managed to get down there last weekend and it was like winter had never happened. It was a gorgeous sunny day on Sunday, and the Barese were out in full force for a morning passeggiata.

One of the nicest places to mosey is, of course, along the water front. This has got to be my favorite part of going down to Bari. While I love the old part of town (Barivecchia), the 19th century neighborhood is where we do most of our hanging out. It’s an area of town that is laid out on a grid pattern and the eastern part runs right up along the waters edge.

I love walking along the Lungomare, a wide paved boardwalk that stretches several kilometers. I love it for obvious reasons (who doesn’t like walking along the sea?) but also for personal ones. The Lungomare was built by Domenico’s grandfather. In fact, many of the major buildings in the area were either designed by one grandfather (an architect) or built by the other (a contractor). So whatever we are doing, there is always an intense sense of place and permanence that is hard to describe.

My own personal Sunday morning passeggiata was no different. While Domenico drove his mother and aunt to church, I headed down to the port. Walking out of the massive palazzo designed and built by Domenico’s family, I walked past the Banca d’Italia and onto the Lungomare, two more family projects.

And ended up at the Sunday morning fish market. The great thing about this city is that the fishing port is smack dab in the center of the city. Small wooden boats pull up beneath the massive bulk of the Teatro Margherita and the Banca d’Italia. As cars speed by, still wet fishermen pull out their fish-filled nets and empty them right onto the elegant paving stones of the Lungomare. Entire schools of fish I’ve never seen before are snapped up for Sunday lunch.

The market is there most days – with fishermen selling things like sea urchins, mussels and squid. But Sunday’s market has way more actual fish. (I think because the regular fish stores are closed that day) so it’s the funnest day to go. This market has been going on for ages, and has been little effected by the intensely ugly renovation of a few years back. Some genius (obviously not a Minchilli) decided to ‘improve’ the market area by building massive cement counters for the fishermen to display their wares. As far as I can tell the only thing they use them for is to rest their  bottles of Peroni that seem to be an essential element of typical Barese fisherman’s breakfast.

Instead, the fish vendors hark their ware atop rickety plastic tables or errant planks of wood. They’ll quickly weigh out a kilo or two of fish for you to take home for Sunday lunch. Or, if you’re ready for the breakfast of champions, grab a plate full of freshly opened sea urchins and dig in.

With a cold bottle of Peroni of course.


















The fish market in Bari is located along the Lungomare, just opposite Piazza Eroi del Mare. You can almost always get sea urchins, except for May-August, when the shells are empty of eggs.