Taranto: the hidden treasure of southern Italy

Taranto, Italy (CNN) – The Apulia region wraps the boot-shaped “heel” of the Italian peninsula. Lined with olive groves, surrounded by crystal clear waters and dotted with charming historic towns and villages, its rustic appeal has made it an increasingly popular destination for tourists.
The list of must-see attractions in the region includes the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Alberobello and Castel del Monte, the Gargano National Park, the Salento Sea Caves and picturesque towns like Otranto, Ostuni and Gallipoli.

However, most of these lists do not show a place of great historical richness.

Tucked at the instep of Pugliese’s heel is the region’s second largest city, Taranto. Known as the Città dei Due Mari, or the City of the Two Seas, its heritage dates back to the Spartans, who founded it in the 8th century BC.

The city is often referred to as the capital of ancient Magna Graecia, and it carries its Greek heritage with pride.

However, more recently Taranto is associated with only one thing: the Ilva steel plant, which was the largest in Europe.

Built in the 1960s, the factory emitted noxious fumes into the city’s sky for decades, before magistrates demanded it be cleaned or closed. In May this year, the former owners of the factory, Fabio and Nicola Riva, were sentenced to long prison terms for their role in polluting the city.

If the fortunes of the city and the factory have seemed inextricably intertwined, there is now a feeling that Taranto not only has a chance to break away from its recent past, but that the future of this forgotten city may be bright.

Rinaldo Melucci is the mayor of Taranto. The 44-year-old man’s office, located in Città Vecchia, faces the sea, but is not far from the steelworks that have defined modern Taranto.

“In the last 50 years, Ilva has not only damaged the health of people and the ecosystem, but also their mentality,” he tells CNN. “It stifled education, creativity; the factory blackmailed Taranto, and made the city believe that it depended on it. It became a factory yard.”

Discover the past

Melucci, who took office in 2017, says he is trying to change that mindset, to showcase a vision for Taranto that revives the city’s ancient identity, and usher in a new, proud and more diverse future.

“For 2,500 years this city had a particular DNA,” he explains. “But in the last 50 years a new identity was imposed by a different ‘business strategy’. We have to recover and recover what was left of that history.”

Taranto now has a fund of € 1.5 billion (US $ 1.77 billion) to carry out this recovery, and the city suddenly feels full of possibilities.

In June it hosted the Italian round of the Sail GP, joining cities like Sydney and San Francisco on the international tournament circuit, and in 2026 it will host the prestigious Mediterranean Games.

Much of his remodeling work, including a brand new stadium that will house the city’s soccer team, is focused on that timeframe.

Melucci has been inspired by other industrial cities, notably Bilbao and Pittsburgh, which are reinventing themselves for a post-industrial future. But, he says, while Bilbao used Frank Gehry’s extravagant Guggenheim museum to fuel its revival, Taranto’s future is more about discovering and restoring what already exists.

One such project is the gigantic Palazzo Archita, an imposing 20,000-square-meter building that dominates the modern city center. For more than a decade, it has stood alone and empty among the commercial streets of Taranto, like a melancholic and decadent colossus, symbol of the bureaucratic inaction that so often affects large projects in Italy.

However, it will soon reopen with spaces including a new art gallery, library, and educational facilities.

“When it is restored it will change the life and the light of an entire neighborhood of the city”, believes Melucci, “because it is not just a building, it will be an iconic place in Taranto”.

Labyrinth of streets

However, perhaps the most significant and important project in the city is a much more complex one.

The Città Vecchia, built on the original Doric platform of ancient Taranto, is a world of its own. A literal island, separated from the modern city by the idiosyncratic Ponte Girevole, or “swing bridge,” the old city was the area most deeply impacted by Ilva’s arrival.

It is an extraordinary relic in ruins; a maze of old streets and abandoned houses, of which only a small community remains of what was the bustling center of the city.

Nello De Gregorio is a local researcher and historian. “I am someone who loves, since I took my first steps, the city in which I grew up,” he explains to CNN. “I have studied and studied again, I have discovered and rediscovered this city, because even now, after 2,500 years, its history never ends, and there are many secrets that are still being revealed.”

At 70, De Gregorio has seen first-hand the decline of the Città Vecchia.

“For 30 years the old city has been literally totally abandoned,” he explains. “At last new projects have been started, which are very important. We are hopeful that, in the next decade, we can finally totally change the face of this area of ​​Taranto, which is also the most beautiful, historical and ancient part” .

Underground chambers

Among De Gregorio’s passions are the many underground chambers that make their way under the ancient city.

Opening an ordinary door in one of the narrow streets of the old city, he leads CNN down a series of dark underground stairs, guided by torchlight through chambers, or hypogea, and tunnels, which eventually lead to the sea.

“There are between 60 and 65 hypogea here,” he says, “of which only half are accessible at the moment. Almost all have their origin in Greek times. The caves were hollowed out to collect materials to build the ancient temples, and then the medieval city, until approximately the year 1800 “.

Its uses have ranged from funeral ceremonies to smuggling, he explains.

The underground chambers are one of the many hidden assets of the ancient city.

Simone Marchesi, who has worked as an architectural consultant for the municipality of Taranto for the past four years, explains her background.

“The old town was abandoned because the new jobs brought in by heavy industry made it possible for people to aspire to higher quality housing, so the old buildings in the old town were losing their appeal.”

“At the beginning of the 90s we found a situation where only a small fraction of the population of 30 years before was still living there,” he continues, “so that most of the buildings had become empty shells, and a very considerable part of these properties belonged, and continues to belong, to the municipality “.

“This gives us an incredible opportunity. The old town was left out of real estate interest for decades, so its original architecture and infrastructure are still intact. Many of the buildings are in very bad condition, but they are still the same as they were developed at throughout history. Everything is very authentic. “

The revival of the Città Vecchia may be a spark for a broader change, Marchesi believes. “One of the main things we try to do in regenerating the old city is to make sure that we can unleash the potential that the cultural assets of the old city have, to act as catalysts for growth.”

The city and the sea

Taranto’s strategy for the old town revolves around restoration, repopulation and accessibility.

Like other Italian cities, the city council has experimented with putting € 1 homes up for sale on the island, almost all of which have been sold.

The University of Bari has occupied some of the largest buildings in the old town, while new shops and restaurants cater to visitors.

A classic Italian Ape, the older cousin of the Vespa (Vespa means wasp in Italian; Ape means “bee”), transports tourists through the labyrinthine streets of Città Vecchia.

Among those streets, CNN finds Giovanni Fabiani, a tourist who comes from Rome. His eyes light up when we ask him for his impressions of the Città Vecchia.

“He doesn’t ask Rome for anything,” he exclaims. “The museum, the old city, this island, it is really wonderful. I love walking through these alleys and listening to their stories. Unfortunately, I think it has not been taken care of as it should. Two days here, surrounded by this, are really worth it. in the life”.

One of the main projects that resists restoration is the remodeling of the Mar Grande de Taranto promenade, at a cost of € 36 million, an elegant and modern promenade that will link its various districts.

Councilor Ubaldo Occhinegro, responsible for urban planning and innovation, affirms that the Mar Grande project “will recover and implement the relationship between the city and the sea, reconnecting its three districts through an uninterrupted promenade at sea level, equipped with various services. and access points “.

The project will also connect the new Taranto cruise terminal with the lower part of the Aragonese walls that surround the old city, offering a new perspective to visitors, he explains.

Taken together, these new projects are expected to completely change the perception of Taranto, both for visitors and residents, and dissociate the fate of the city from that of Ilva.

Taranto’s dilemma has always been the fact that Ilva employs about 10,000 people. Eliminating those jobs entirely would be a drastic measure, but Melucci believes a compromise is possible, primarily by decarbonizing the plant.

“The idea is to emancipate ourselves from Ilva, so that it stops being ‘the factory’ and is simply ‘a factory’. We want it to be a smaller, more modern and safer version of what it has been in the past.”

Ultimately, and perhaps appropriately for the City of Two Seas, Melucci believes that the fate of Taranto is best focused on the water that surrounds it.

“For Taranto I see the sea, the sea and the sea. Whatever the question, the answer is the sea,” he says. “Because the sea is our DNA, it has been our fortune, our livelihood, our health, the games of our young children, and it will probably be our future.”

“This is a great city and you cannot survive only with tourism, with fun events,” he continues.

“You also need the factory, you need the port, you need to balance everything. We have been an Ilva shipyard for 50 years; we are no longer that. This is the image we want to give at the end of this journey.”