Photo: Benjamin Smith (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Bari Vecchia, the old town on its point, from the castle to the Teatro Petruzzelli on Corso Cavour in the new town; the cruise terminal is a short, flat walk along the seafront from the castle. It begins at the Castello Normanno-Svevo, commissioned by the Norman king Roger II in 1131 and rebuilt by Frederick II between 1233 and 1240, and passes under the Arco Basso into the street where women roll orecchiette by hand outside their homes. It continues to the cathedral of San Sabino, rebuilt after the Byzantine cathedral was destroyed in 1156, Palazzo Simi, the Carmelites' Santa Teresa dei Maschi and the churches of San Marco dei Veneziani, Santa Chiara and San Giovanni Crisostomo, to the Basilica of Saint Nicholas, begun in 1087, the year sailors from Bari brought the saint's relics from Myra. Around it lie the site of the Byzantine governor's Corte del Catapano, San Gregorio and the Museo Nicolaiano; then come Santa Maria del Buon Consiglio, Santa Scolastica at the northern point, the Muraglia sea walls and the Jesuit church of the Gesù. The walk ends through Sant'Anna, Piazza Mercantile and the Sedile dei Nobili, Piazza del Ferrarese, the Vallisa and the Fortino di Sant'Antonio, to the Teatro Margherita standing in the water at the old port and the Teatro Petruzzelli.
24 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 214 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 22 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Castello Normanno-Svevo, Strada Arco Basso, Cathedral of Saint Sabinus, Palazzo Simi, Santa Teresa dei Maschi.
San Marco dei Veneziani, Church of Santa Chiara, San Giovanni Crisostomo, Basilica of Saint Nicholas, Corte del Catapano, Chiesa di San Gregorio, Museo Nicolaiano, Santa Maria del Buon Consiglio, Museo Archeologico di Santa Scolastica, Muraglia Sea Walls, Chiesa del Gesù.
Sant'Anna, Piazza Mercantile, Sedile dei Nobili, Piazza del Ferrarese, Auditorium Diocesano Vallisa, Fortino di Sant’Antonio Abate, Teatro Margherita, Teatro Petruzzelli.
The castle Roger II commissioned in 1131 to secure the Norman conquest of Bari, rebuilt and strengthened by Frederick II between 1233 and 1240.
The small stone arch through the houses, with its votive shrine, and beyond it the street where women roll orecchiette by hand.
The Apulian Romanesque cathedral Archbishop Rainaldo began after the Byzantine cathedral on this site was destroyed in 1156.
The basilica begun in 1087, the year sailors from Bari carried the relics of Saint Nicholas from Myra by sea.
Bari Vecchia's seaward wall, built and rebuilt from antiquity through the Byzantine, Norman, Swabian and Spanish periods.
Bari's main marketplace and civic centre, linking the old port to the medieval route toward the Basilica of Saint Nicholas.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 24 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 24 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Bari Vecchia — Saint Nicholas, the Cathedral and the Old Town, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
24 narration points, including Castello Normanno-Svevo, Strada Arco Basso, Cathedral of Saint Sabinus, Basilica of Saint Nicholas and Muraglia Sea Walls. That is about 34 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 24 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.