The old city is very church heavy. I understand about 30 different churches in just this small section of Bari and realistically, the Basilica di St. Nichola is the star attraction. Plus, you can go downstairs when there is no service in progress. This morning El and I ventured down with our guidebooks to learn about what we were looking at. Honestly, given my lack of interest in most things ecclesiastical much of the information goes in one ear and out the other, literally, as El scrolls through our history and tourist info written in Italian, translating all of it. Not that I don’t appreciate her efforts, but at some point, I said I really only need the first paragraph done as, was the text in English, I would have started drifting around the time I got to the second indent. That said, we sat on a pew in front of the crypt that houses the bones of St. Nicola, soaking in the surroundings and deciding what we needed to take pictures of. Although you can’t see any bones, the crypt is said to house about 65% of the entire skeleton of St. Nicola who is the actual personification of the character of Santa Claus. Known for his generosity, anonymous gift giving, kindness, and goodwill during his lifetime, he was a well liked guy. After his death, when the area he was buried in (in modern day Turkey) fell under Muslim control, a group of devoted sailors absconded with his bones (or at least 65% of them) and brought them back to Bari where they were reinterred in the crypt underneath the basilica. I had always heard that Santa Claus was a real guy, I just never knew that I would be sitting on a pew about 15 feet from his actual remains. It is for this reason, I can now report that for all intents and purposes, the dude is really dead. He was alive in the 900’s A.D., so even though his legend lives on, sadly, he does not.
My Google search says he lived 3/15/270 AD and died 12/6/343 AD. You should have listened to El's reading a little more closely. But a very informative discourse nonetheless.
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