They call it the "city of olive trees", and the numbers agree: Bitonto sits in a sea of centuries-old olives of the cultivar bearing its name, and its extra-virgin oil ranks among the Mediterranean's most awarded. In the centre, the cathedral of San Valentino is a summit of Puglian Romanesque: beneath its floor surfaced a mosaic griffin — a thousand years of church built upon church.
On 26 May 1734 the plain outside saw the battle of Bitonto, which handed the Kingdom of Naples to the Bourbons: an obelisk remembers it. The old town, with Renaissance palaces and courtyards, is among the province's best preserved; Bari is fifteen minutes away.
Near Bitonto
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
