Every design for Molfetta

At the Pulo di Molfetta the ground simply opens: a circular hollow 23 metres deep, ringed with caves and the remains of old buildings, and one of the most important Neolithic sites in southern Italy. Molfetta's story starts there, inland, before it moves to the sea. The town itself grew from a fishing village on the little peninsula of Sant'Andrea, traded across the Mediterranean as an independent port, and in the Crusades became a port of embarkation for pilgrims bound for the Holy Land; one of them, Conrad of Bavaria, loved the place so much that he became San Corrado, its patron saint.

The Antico Ponte Lama Martina spans one of the lame, the dry ravines that cut through the limestone towards the coast, and the Parco Lama Martina has grown up around it. Down on the shore, Cala San Giacomo opens onto the Adriatic, while the Museo Archeologico del Pulo keeps the finds from the great hollow inland. The old city has been well restored, the Romanesque old cathedral of San Corrado still stands, and the town keeps its own dialect, in which Molfetta is Melfétte.

Anyone who grew up here carries the shape of that seafront and the old town on its peninsula. On the map they are exactly where you left them.