Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Several companies also offer tours of the caves that pock the Gargano coast - a three-
hour tour costs around €13.
BUS
From Piazzale Manzoni, where intercity buses terminate, a 10-minute walk east along
Viale XXIV Maggio, which becomes Corso Fazzini, brings you into the old town and the
Marina Piccola's attractive promenade. In summer buses terminate at Via Verdi.
SITA
( 0881 35 20 11;
www.sitabus.it
)
buses run between Vieste and Foggia (€6.50, 2¾
hours, four daily) via Manfredonia. There are also services to Monte Sant'Angelo (€5) via
direct daily service to Monte Sant'Angelo (€6, two hours) and frequent services to
Peschici (€1.70, 35 minutes).
From May to September,
Pugliairbus
( 080 580 03 58; pugliairbus.aeroportidipuglia.it)
runs a ser-
vice to the Gargano, including Vieste, from Bari airport (€20, 3½ hours, four daily).
WORTH A TRIP
LUCERA
Lovely Lucera has one of Puglia's most impressive castles and a handsome old town centre with mellow sand-
coloured brick- and stonework, and chic shops lining wide, shiny stone streets. Founded by the Romans in the 4th
century BC, it was abandoned by the 13th century. Following excommunication by Pope Gregory IX, Frederick II
decided to bolster his support base in Puglia by importing 20,000 Sicilian Arabs, simultaneously diminishing the
headache Arab bandits were causing him in Sicily. It was an extraordinary move by the Christian monarch, even
more so because Frederick allowed Lucera's new Muslim inhabitants the freedom to build mosques and practise
their religion a mere 290km from Rome. History, however, was less kind; when the town was taken by the rabidly
Christian Angevins in 1269, every Muslim who failed to convert was slaughtered.
Frederick II's enormous
castle
( 9am-2pm year-round & 3-7pm Apr-Sep) , shows just what a big
fish Lucera once was in the Puglian pond. Built in 1233, it's 14km northwest of the town on a rocky hillock sur-
rounded by a perfect 1km pentagonal wall, guarded by 24 towers.
On the site of Lucera's Great Mosque, Puglia's only Gothic
cathedral
( 8am-noon & 4-7pm May-Sep,
8am-noon & 5-8pm Oct-Apr) was built in 1301 by Charles II of Anjou. The altar was once the castle banqueting
table.
Dominated by a huge rose window, the contemporaneous Gothic
Chiesa di San Francesco
(
8am-noon &
4-7pm) incorporates recycled materials from Lucera's 1st-century-BC
Roman amphitheatre
(
9am-2pm &
3.15-6.45pm Tue-Sun Apr-Sep)
. The amphitheatre was built for gladiatorial combat and accommodated
up to 18,000 people.
The
tourist office
(
0881 52 27 62;
9am-2pm & 3-8pm Tue-Sun Apr-Sep, 9am-2pm Oct-Mar) is near
the cathedral.
Ferrovie del Gargano trains run to Lucera from Foggia (€1.50, 20 minutes, three daily) which is on the east
coast train line between Bari and Pescara.
