Conversano

Conversano sits on the first hills of the Murge plateau, twenty-five kilometers southeast of Bari and seven from the Adriatic. The Castello di Conversano was raised around 1054 by the Normans for defence and turned into a seigneurial residence by the Acquaviva d'Aragona counts, who ruled from 1455 until the early nineteenth century. Inside the castle the Pinacoteca holds the ten-canvas cycle of episodes from Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata painted by Paolo Domenico Finoglio in the 1640s, commissioned by Count Giangirolamo II d'Acquaviva.

Opposite the castle stands the Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, eleventh- and twelfth-century Apulian Romanesque with a sculpted portal, a rose window, and an interior Crucifix that anchors the patronal procession. The former Monastero di San Benedetto, with a Romanesque cloister, was entrusted in 1266 by Pope Clement IV to Cistercian nuns exiled from Methoni in Greece, an arrangement so unusual it earned the monastery the medieval nickname Monstrum Apuliae, the Wonder of Puglia.

From Bari / Brindisi (BRI), about 47 minutes by car.

Naples / Salerno (NAP) is about 3h 40m away.

By car from the centre of Bari 36 minutes, Lecce 1h 38m or Salerno 3h 35m.

There is a railway station in the comune, so you can arrive without a car.

Coming from Bari?

Coming by train into Bari Centrale? Conversano is about 37 minutes away by road.

Every town within reach of Bari / Brindisi airport.