In few days Giro d’Italia 2014 will start. A special interview to introduce the event on Italian Storytellers.
The 2014 edition of Giro d’Italia is beginning on Friday May 9th from Belfast, where the Big Start will kick-off the event. After the first 3 stages cyclists will move to Italy.
We tought to talk about Italian stages on Italian Storytellers, but in a different way. Cyclists ride so fast that you can’t admire landscapes on TV as well as you don’t know which marvellous territories they get through. We want to introduce you towns and lands you can’t discover only by watching the TV. Giro d’Italia will starts from Puglia and it will go through Italian regions. We will follow it stage by stage telling you why they are special.
In order to start talking about the greatest Italian cycling event we interviewed a person who loves cycling and who is really amazed by having the first Italian stage in its town. His name is Antonio Vasile and he is one of the borough council members of Bari district.
Let’s read what he told us!
Which are the reasons why Giro d’Italia starts from Bari?
Cycling is strictly connected to Bari thanks to Vito Vasile. He was a professional cyclist belonging to the 50s and the 60s and is a famous businessman from Bari. That’s why the regional capital is all along a favourite place for all the cyclist champions and Gazzetta dello Sport, the newspaper that organizes Giro d’Italia.
For the 2014 edition we had the opportunity to host the 1st Italian stage on May 13th. City and regional organizations approved the proposal by Vito Vasile. The stage will start from Giovinazzo, going through Molfetta and Bitonto, arriving to Bari riding 8 times along a town circuit of 9,6 km.
This circuit will lead the cyclists around Bari Vecchia (i.e. Ancient Bari), a treasure chest keeping St. Nicholas Basilica, the Cathedral, the Norman Swabian Castle and thousand of precious historical and architectural mementos, skirting the waterfront and enjoying sea scent.
Bari, during the 80 km of the town circuit, is going to have the possibility to let the cyclists and the audience enjoy the beauty of a magical land that is a crossroads between East and West. This allows us to strenghten the image of Puglia brand all over the world, but also giving an additional impulse to the value of typical wine and food products, traditions, artistics and architectural beauties, handcraft and sustainable tourism.
Bari and the surroundings can be defined ideal for bike lovers?
Bari citizens are used to ride bicycle due to flat territory and good climate. Just outside the town there is Conca barese (i.e. Bari’s hollow) that boasts of many cycling paths in contact with nature and rural traditions. From Bari bike lovers can ride down pleasent itineraries to Adelfia, Triggiano, Modugno, Bitonto, Giovinazzo and so on, discovering little centres in the inland or along the coast.
Inside Bari in the latest years the cycling lane is grown and the Commune together with AMTAB offered the service called Barinbici (i.e. Bari by bike). It is an automatic rent-a-bike to those who arrive to Bari by train, bus or car and want to feel free to move. There are 22 stations throughout the town and thanks to an electronic card everyone can ride a bike. The pick-up and drop-off could be everywhere on town so that you could change the means of transport in the easiest way.
Barinbici is useful for those who work, travel, go to shopping and it is a concrete alternative to the car.
Tell the reasons why IS readers should come to Bari with or without a bicycle.
Bari is a successful meltin pot of sea, salt and iodine. Its colours are charming and captivating all year round. The city has a so long waterfront that you gonna be exhausted walking up and down. It allows you to live the sea in every moment. You can’t rule out to swim in January as you have not to despair because of August heat, that you can tolerate thanks to the winds.
Bari is life, people, bustle and maybe an unaware happiness. Walking along the alleys of Bari Vecchia will be not only a pleasure for your eyes, but also for your taste and smell as well. Bari Vecchia is a fully experience. After you visit the Basilica, the Cathedral, the Castle, you will be involved you in people own dialect. You will be offered ‘sgagliozze‘ and ‘popizze‘ just fried in front of their houses. You will be invited to eat handmade orecchiette dressed by the ragù.
‘A Nderr a la Lanz‘ involves you in the primordial ritual of ‘raw’ offering you raw ‘allievi‘ and mussels just sprinkled by some lemon drops. If you are lucky you can see fishermen doing the ‘arricciatura‘ of the octopusses along the seashore.
Bari is ‘cool’, fun, and it has never-ending nights. Bari requests all the energies you have to start partying at 8.00 pm by the first contact with street food, poor and traditional, continuing at 11.oo pm in one of the little restaurants in the city centre or in the Murat area with a dinner composed by at least 20 starter, tastes of different main courses, some tastes of sea foods, fried fish and ‘mbratta muss‘, simple sweets with custard and then wine and rosoli floods.
After Midnight the life continues in pubs and disco bars and at the sunrise when the experience seems to come to an end, here it is the ritual of the warm brioche with a cappuccino, maybe sitting on a bench along the waterfront looking eastward admiring the sunrise.
