Taranto

Taranto is one of the most surprising cities in Italy, and one of the least visited. It sits on the Ionian sea where the water splits in two: the open Mar Grande and the still lagoon of the Mar Piccolo, with its old town on an island between them, joined to the mainland by a bridge that swings open to let the warships through. Nearly three thousand years ago it was Taras, the only city the Spartans ever founded overseas, and the gold its Greek craftsmen left behind still glows in the cases of the MArTA, one of the great archaeological museums of the country.