Taranto · Go deeper
Where to live
Taranto divides across the water: the ancient old town on its island between the two seas, the elegant nineteenth-century Borgo grid on the mainland across the swing bridge, and the newer districts spreading out beyond. Two seas, three quarters, and a swing bridge between them.
The island old town
Città Vecchia (the old town)
lower, revivingThe ancient heart of Taranto, a crumbling-but-living island of narrow shadowed lanes between the two seas, where the fish market and the marina still set the daily rhythm and children play in streets two thousand years old. Long neglected, it's slowly being restored, and prices here are astonishingly low. Much of it is still rough and mid-restoration, condition swings wildly building to building, so this is a place to know street by street and view in person.
Best for: the adventurous and the patient, drawn to a real ancient old town on the way back up
Learn more about the historic heart
This island was once one of the richest cities in the Greek world. Founded around 706 BC as Taras, the only colony the warlike Spartans ever sent overseas, it grew into a jewel of Magna Graecia, minting its own coins and raising temples to its gods. Two great Doric columns still stand in the old town, the remains of a temple from the sixth century BC and the oldest Greek temple in southern Italy; the rest of that golden age glitters in the museum’s cases of Tarantine gold across the water.
Layer by layer the island kept its importance. In 1070 it built the Cathedral of San Cataldo, the oldest cathedral in all of Puglia, and at the island’s tip the Aragonese Castle rose in 1492 on the stones of an earlier Byzantine fortress, guarding the channel between the two seas, a job it still does, now in the hands of the navy. Greek, Byzantine, Norman, Aragonese: the whole history of the south is stacked on this one small island, lived in without a break for nearly three thousand years.
The mainland grid
Borgo / Borgo Umbertino
most desirableThe elegant modern centre, laid out in a nineteenth-century grid on the mainland just across the swing bridge: the shopping streets, the grand seafront promenade along the Mar Grande, the cafés and restaurants, and the best of everyday city life. This is the most desirable and comfortable place to live, handsome and central, and by Taranto's standards still remarkably affordable.
Best for: those wanting the comfortable, walkable, seafront heart of the modern city
The outer districts
The outer districts (Solito, Talsano & the residential edges)
mid, practical valueThe newer residential districts spreading out from the centre along the coast and inland: modern apartment blocks, more space, quieter streets, and the lowest prices, in exchange for a bus ride into the centre. Practical and family-oriented, this is where much of everyday, working Taranto lives, away from the old town and the industrial edge of the city.
Best for: families and residents wanting space and value in the calmer outer city
Rough tiers are indicative and move with the market. Check current listings on Immobiliare ›