The port has seen the transit of multitudes of people: emperors and popes, warriors and saints, great men and humble pilgrims, Julius Caesar at the time of the civil war, Saint Francis of Assisi on the way to the Holy Land. It was the Gateway to the East, the “Suitcase of the Indies” on the route between London and Bombay and now is one of the most beautiful Puglia attractions. Everyone considered it the best and most beautiful port in the world. Due to its strange shape, a deer’s head (the original name, Brendon, which comes from the Messapians who founded it in the fifth century BC, means deer head). A form that envelops the city, protecting military fortifications and Roman, Norman, and Gothic treasures. Due to the essential and at the same time refined elegance of the buildings that look out over the seafront, the Viale Regina Margherita, recently restored: the Grande Albergo Internazionale in art deco style, the Palazzo Montenegro of the 17th century with a beautiful courtyard. The gaze also and inevitably falls on the Monument to the Sailor, on one of the two sides of the port reachable by ferry, on the symbolic helm of the Fascist era raised to commemorate the approximately 7,000 sailors who fell from the Unification of Italy (17 March 1861) onwards. It is imposing, majestic, tall and, from the terrace on which it rests, you cannot miss the view on the city and on the port.
