Bari's Cathedral

The Cathedral of Bari — Eternal second banana to San Nicola, but a fine church all the same

Though it's almost as fine an example of Romanesque architecture, Bari's cathedral is second rate to the famous San Nicola. Built about a century after St. Nick's church, it's a striking edifice, with a tall bell tower and an octagonal drum supporting the central dome, but the facade has some more recent embellishments, including baroque canopies over the doors and a modern rose window.

To see the best part of the exterior, you have to enter the church and step out a door on the right aisle into the courtyard, where the east portal (at the right transept) preserves carved animals and other Byzantine-style decorations.

The pulpit is a curious cobbling together of 13th-century fragments, and bits of mosaic flooring from an earlier, 8th-century church survive in the transept alongside some medieval and frescoes and a modern ciborium.

The cylindrical, trullo-like sacristy predates the church by 100 years and was once a freestanding baptistery.