Taranto Italy: Guide to Puglia’s City of Two Seas

In 706 BC, a group of Spartan colonists sailed west across the Ionian Sea and founded a city on a sheltered bay where the water was warm, the soil was fertile, and the fishing was extraordinary. They called it Taras. Within two centuries it had become the largest and most powerful Greek city in the western Mediterranean — richer than Syracuse, more cultured than Carthage, home to the philosopher Archytas and the place where Pythagoras spent his most productive years.

Taranto carries that history in its bones. The old town still sits on the island the Greeks chose — a promontory between two bodies of water that locals have called the Mar Grande and the Mar Piccolo since antiquity, giving the city its enduring identity as the Città dei Due Mari — the City of Two Seas. The national archaeological museum here contains the finest collection of ancient Greek gold jewellery in the world. The mussels farmed in the sheltered waters of the Mar Piccolo have been famous since Roman times. And every Easter, Taranto Puglia hosts the most extraordinary Holy Week procession in all of Italy.

Most visitors to Puglia pass Taranto by. That is their loss and, if you read this guide, your advantage.

📅 Best Time to Visit Taranto

Season	Conditions	Verdict
April – May	Mild, uncrowded, Easter procession in April (date varies).	✅✅ Outstanding — especially at Easter
June	Warm, sea swimmable, full services open.	✅✅ Best general window
July – August	Hot, lively, beaches and waterfront busy.	✅ Book ahead for accommodation
September	Sea still warm, crowds thinning, golden light.	✅✅ Excellent
October – November	Quiet, mild, good for culture and the MARTA.	✅ Underrated season
December – March	Quiet, some venues closed. Easter if dates fall in March.	⚠️ Off-season except for Easter

June and September are the most comfortable months for a general visit. But if you can align your trip with Holy Week — whenever Easter falls — Taranto in the days around Good Friday is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that no other month can replicate.

🏛️ Top Things to See in Taranto

MARTA — The National Archaeological Museum

The Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Taranto — MARTA — is the reason serious travellers come to this city, and it is one of the most undervisited great museums in Italy. The collection covers three thousand years of civilisation on this coastline, from the Bronze Age Messapian settlers through the Greek colonial period, the Roman conquest, and the Byzantine era.

The centrepiece — the thing that justifies the journey from anywhere in Puglia — is the Ori di Taranto: the Gold of Taranto. Ancient Greek goldsmiths working in Taras between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC produced jewellery of such technical refinement that modern craftspeople, working with contemporary tools, struggle to replicate it. The granulation technique — attaching microscopic gold beads to a gold surface without visible solder — was lost for centuries after the fall of the ancient world and only partially rediscovered in the 20th century. The earrings, necklaces, diadems, and fibulae on display in MARTA were made by hand, with tools we would consider primitive, to a standard of precision that is frankly difficult to explain.

Beyond the gold, the museum holds the largest collection of ancient Greek painted ceramics in southern Italy, a room of terracotta votive figures from the sanctuary of Persephone, and bronze statues of extraordinary quality recovered from the sea floor of the harbour.

💡 Plan at least two hours, ideally three. The ground floor covers prehistory and the early Greek period; the first floor has the gold. Don’t rush the gold floor — the individual pieces reward close attention in a way that photographs don’t convey. Check the museum’s calendar at museotaranto.cultura.gov.it for temporary exhibitions and evening openings in summer.

Address: Via Cavour 10, Taranto Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 8:30am–7:30pm (verify locally) Admission: €8 adults, reduced rates available

The Old Town Island — Taranto Vecchia

The old town of Taranto occupies a small island — the original Greek promontory — connected to the modern city by two bridges. Cross the Ponte Girevole, the famous swing bridge that opens to allow ships to pass between the two seas, and you enter a quarter that feels genuinely apart from the rest of the city. The Ponte Girevole itself is worth watching — it rotates on its central axis to open the channel, a piece of late 19th-century engineering that still functions perfectly.

The old town is poor, partially abandoned in places, and deeply atmospheric. The streets are narrow, the buildings are layered with centuries of use and neglect, and the light that comes off the Mar Piccolo in the early morning is extraordinary. It is not a sanitised tourist old town — it is a working neighbourhood in the process of slow regeneration, which makes it more interesting, not less.

What to look for: The Cathedral of San Cataldo is the most important building on the island — an 11th-century Norman structure built on the site of an earlier Byzantine church, with a Baroque facade added in the 17th century and an interior that contains the crypt of San Cataldo himself, the Irish bishop who died here in the 7th century on his way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The crypt is one of the oldest surviving religious spaces in Puglia, with fragmentary Byzantine mosaic work still visible on the walls.

The Aragonese Castle guards the entrance to the old town at the point where the swing bridge meets the island. Built by Ferdinand I of Aragon in the late 15th century on the foundations of an earlier Byzantine fortification, it’s an imposing structure that currently houses a naval command — which limits civilian access — but the exterior and the views from the bridge approach are worth the walk regardless. Check locally for any open days or guided tours. See our dedicated Aragonese Castle guide for full details.

💡 Walk the old town in the morning. By 9am the light on the Mar Piccolo is at its best and the streets are quiet. By midday the heat and the relative emptiness of the neighbourhood can feel oppressive. The morning hour is the right time.

The Lungomare and Mar Grande Waterfront

The seafront promenade along the Mar Grande — the Lungomare Vittorio Emanuele III — is one of the most pleasant waterfronts in Puglia. Palm trees, wide pavements, views across the bay to the distant headlands, and a row of bars and restaurants that fill up every evening from aperitivo time onwards. In summer it stays lively until midnight.

The Mar Grande itself is the outer harbour — open sea, with the Gulf of Taranto stretching south towards the Ionian. Fishing boats work the bay every morning, and the daily catch feeds the fish market and the restaurants that take it seriously.

The Easter Procession — Processione dei Misteri

Taranto’s Holy Week is one of the most extraordinary religious and cultural events in Italy and it deserves a dedicated mention even on a general city guide. The Processione dei Misteri begins on the night of Holy Thursday and runs continuously for up to 24 hours, with members of the city’s two ancient confraternities — one dressed in white, one in blue — walking barefoot through the streets of the old town in a slow, swaying step called the nazzicata, carrying baroque statues of the Passion.

The silence of the crowd is total. The music is mournful and hypnotic. Watching the procession move through the narrow streets of Taranto Vecchia by candlelight in the early hours of Good Friday morning is an experience that stays with you.

If your travel dates allow any flexibility around Easter, build them around Taranto. See our full Easter in Puglia guide for everything you need to plan a Holy Week visit.

💡 Book accommodation months ahead for Easter. The city fills completely. Hotels within walking distance of the old town sell out by January for peak Holy Week nights.

🦪 What to Eat in Taranto

Taranto’s food identity is built entirely around the sea — and more specifically around the extraordinary produce of the Mar Piccolo, the sheltered inner sea that gives the city its dual character.

Cozze Tarantine — The Mussels of the Mar Piccolo

The mussels farmed in the Mar Piccolo are the most famous in Italy. The inner sea’s unique combination of freshwater springs — called citri — mixing with saltwater creates conditions of exceptional richness. The mussels grow large, plump, and sweet, with a flavour that is noticeably different from Atlantic or Adriatic mussels — more mineral, more complex, more intensely themselves.

They appear on menus in dozens of forms: raw with lemon (crude), gratinated with breadcrumbs and parsley (gratinate), in a tomato broth with bread for dipping (al pomodoro), or in the classic Pugliese baked dish of riso, patate e cozze — rice, potatoes, and mussels slow-baked in a terracotta pot until the top layer is golden and the bottom is soft and yielding. Eaten in Taranto, made with Mar Piccolo mussels, this dish is one of the best things in Puglia.

💡 Order the raw mussels first. Before any cooked preparation, ask for a plate of raw mussels with lemon. The quality of what the Mar Piccolo produces is most apparent uncooked. If they’re good — and in Taranto they always are — everything that follows will be even better.

Frittura di Paranza

The paranza is the small-boat inshore catch — tiny fish, prawns, squid, and whatever else came up in the net that morning, lightly floured and deep-fried until crisp. In Taranto, where the fishing fleet still operates seriously, the frittura is as fresh as it gets. Order it as a shared starter, eat it immediately while it’s hot, and use plenty of lemon.

Taranto Seafood Pasta

Spaghetti alle cozze — pasta with mussels in white wine, garlic, and parsley — is the signature primo of every serious restaurant in the city. The pasta should be al dente, the sauce should be the cooking liquid reduced with good olive oil, and the mussels should be Mar Piccolo. Anything less is a compromise.

Wine

The local Primitivo di Manduria — produced in the area around Manduria, 30 kilometres northwest of Taranto — is one of the great wines of southern Italy. Full-bodied, deeply coloured, high in alcohol, with a complexity that increases significantly with age. Order it by the glass with the second course; it’s too powerful for raw seafood but perfect with grilled fish, lamb, and aged cheese.

🚗 How to Get to Taranto

By Car — Most Practical

From Bari, Taranto is approximately 95 kilometres via the A14 motorway — around 1 hour. From Lecce, allow about 1 hour via the SS7. From Brindisi, approximately 50 kilometres, around 45 minutes. Parking in the city centre is available in several paid car parks near the old town bridge.

By Train

Taranto has direct rail connections from Bari (approximately 1h15 on the fastest service), Lecce (approximately 1h30), and Brindisi (approximately 50 minutes). The station is on the mainland side of the city, about 15 minutes’ walk from the swing bridge and old town. Check timetables at trenitalia.com — services are regular throughout the day.

By Bus

FlixBus and regional bus services connect Taranto with Bari and other Puglia cities. Useful for budget travellers but slower and less frequent than the train.

📍 Nearby Places Worth Visiting

Grottaglie (20 min) — The ceramics capital of Puglia. The entire historic quarter — the quartiere delle ceramiche — is a warren of workshops and studios producing everything from traditional storage amphorae to contemporary design pieces. One of the most distinctive craft destinations in southern Italy.

Manduria (30 min west) — The home of Primitivo di Manduria DOC wine, one of Puglia’s most celebrated reds. The town itself has impressive Messapian walls and an ancient Jewish ghetto. The surrounding wineries offer tastings and cellar visits.

Pulsano and the Taranto Beaches (20 min south) — The Ionian coast south of Taranto has some of the most beautiful shallow beaches in the region — fine white sand, turquoise water, and far fewer visitors than the more famous Salento resorts. The area around Pulsano and Leporano is the local favourite.

Castellaneta (45 min northwest) — The birthplace of Rudolph Valentino, the greatest male film star of the silent era. A small hilltop town with dramatic ravines below it and a museum dedicated to its most famous son. Niche but genuinely interesting.

Martina Franca (45 min north) — The most elegant town in the Valle d’Itria, with outstanding Baroque architecture and the best capocollo cured meat in Puglia.

Matera (1 hour west, Basilicata) — Technically across the regional border, but close enough to justify a day trip. The ancient Sassi cave city — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and 2019 European Capital of Culture — is one of the most extraordinary urban landscapes in Europe.

✍️ Conclusion: Italy’s Most Underestimated City

Taranto doesn’t fit the standard Puglia narrative — no trulli, no baroque facades, no whitewashed hilltop silhouette. What it has instead is older, stranger, and in its own way more compelling: three thousand years of continuous urban history, the world’s finest collection of ancient Greek gold, a fishery that has been producing extraordinary mussels since the Romans first farmed them, and a Holy Week procession that has no equal in Italy.

The visitors who give Taranto a day rather than a drive-past come back with stories the rest of the group doesn’t have.

Plan your visit: Compare accommodation options in Taranto → arrange a car rental for exploring the surrounding province → and consider booking a food experience centred on the Mar Piccolo seafood tradition.

Explore more of Puglia on beautifulpuglia.com: Salento, Lecce, Grottaglie, Easter in Puglia, and the Puglia travel guide.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions