Questo sono mio, umm this is me, at our apartment door in Bari. Our first stop in southern Italy.
Finding the small, first-floor apartment was easy. Exit the train station then head perpendicular to the tracks. Follow what turns out to be the main shopping street (car-less, the continental trend), then, when the modern grid of streets is replaced by the tangle of the old city, you are there.
Well, almost. You see, the old town of Bari is a dense and confusing maze of narrow passages, charming old buildings, and striking old churches. It is said that Bari's streets were laid out, not by wandering cows, as in Boston, but in a pattern that would discourage both invaders and strong winds coming off the sea. This might well be true. The streets certainly discouraged me; they brought to mind Venice, surely a champion of confusing city layouts.
Our street, Corte San Triggiano, is typical of old town Bari, dense with greenery, doorways, and hanging laundry; it is barely wide enough for a scooter to quickly zip past, which is of course what they do. Open the door and bang, you hit a scooter driver on the head, or at least that's what I feared though it never occurred.