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La Salumeria
What would you do with 30 minutes to spare in a city you knew it was unlikely you'd return to?
That was the question facing me back in January 2009 while I was on a business trip to Bari in Italy.
I'd arrived late the day before, flying from houston via Atlanta, and Rome, and then on to Bari. I was there in my role as a business consultant to inspect a factory.
When I arrived at the Palace Hotel. the sun had already set and a steady winter rain was falling. I was grateful for the quiet room and comfortable bed.
Throwing back the curtains in the morning, I saw the clouds had gone. From the tourist maps in the hotel room, I knew I was on the edge of old town Bari.
I rushed through packing, left my bags with the bell boy, and hurried out to the street.
Right out of the hotel, down a narrow street, left on the tree-lined piazza and I found myself at the Castello Svevo. Then right again, along the castle moat, to the western-most point. Check for traffic then across the street and I was in the narrow lanes of the old town.
From the Piazza dell Odegitra, outside the Basilica Cattedrale di San Sabino, I found myself looking along the Arco Della Neve with La Salumeria – the butcher – at the far end of the passageway. The butcher had just opened his store. Outside a man was starting his scooter.
I paused and took two photos: one horizontal and one vertical, before hurrying on down the passageway to the Via Tancredi. By the time I got to the end of the street, the man on the scooter was long gone.
After grabbing a handful of shots of the various streets of the old town, I retraced my steps back to the hotel, my taxi, and my consulting engagement.
From the EXIF data in my camera, I took my first photo at 8:57 am as I left the hotel. I made the last at 9:22 am at the intersection of Strada del Carmine and Strada Filioli. A rushed, 25-minute photo walk.
From Google maps, I covered about 1.5km – about a mile – on that frantic photo walk. The town was just waking up at that time. I've a photo of a custodian at the castle setting out the flags, a woman opening her window shutters, and lines of people waiting for food stores to open.
The La Salumeria in these photos seems to be closed now. A quick street view on Google maps shows the graffitied shutters closed, a for-sale sign above the door, and a copyright Google 2020 watermark on the street view images.
Old town Bari is one of the places I so wish I had more time to go back and explore. This section of the old town was truly charming, reminding me so much of the old town sections of Valencia and Alicante in Spain but (I'm my personal opinion) with better coffee.
Image Capture:
- Canon Powershot SD900 (7.7 – 23.1 mm)
- ISO (not recorded) 1/20 sec at f/4.0
- JPEG Original Capture
Image Processing:
- Simple contrast adjustments in Adobe Lightroom
- Additional adjustments in Adobe Photoshop
- Small tweaks of contrast and detail in Nik Color Efex Pro 4 by DXO
