- BAIA: THE ANCIENT "BORGO" SUBURB AND THE MEDIEVAL CASTLE -
Panoramic view of Baia's town Medieval Borgo
(click on the icon to enlarge the image)
Close to
Scotti's Palace, there's one of the gates to enter the MEDIEVAL BORGO
of Baia's
town with its
typical steps totally made of stone. In fact, here, everything has been left as
it was some centuries ago
(but this is either good or bad, because some buildings
are dangerously tottering..)!! Well, we think that at this point of our walk, it
should be up to the visitor to watch himself around catching all the best
sightseeings in this area...
Let's go
on straight on our way
and we're gonna reach the
top of the Borgo, where we'll find a
typical square called "BASULATA", so
said because of the
dialectal name of its stone ground. Here our
ancestries was used to sing and dance together happily, at the end of their hard
working days in the fields. In the try to rediscover back this unlimited popular
tradition of our town and to let it still as long as it's possible, in our town
it does exist since some years a Folk Group just named "LA
BASULATA" that has the aim to bring outside the thin borders of our town,
our folk music and dance tradition.
But let's go back on our way and let's
descend the stone steps we've just walked: we're gonna meet once again the
crossing made up from the stone stairs goin' up and down the Borgo. Let's take
the one on our left side and we're gonna face Baia's
MEDIEVAL CASTLE, with its enigmatic cross
chiseled on a stone put
on the front of the building. To gain a better view, we gotta move a few metres
on our left side, as enough to face the castle: the big hole at the base of the
monument (actually filled with some stones), has been produced from the air
bombing during the 2nd World War. We'll also easily notice the symbol chiseled
on a stone right in the middle of the structure: it represents a Norman Cross
and this symbol was probably used from this population to mean their properties.
Don't let you fool from the unusual shape of the Castle: unlucky, probably what we can see is just a bit of its original conformation!!.. But, more, to have a better idea of what we're talkin' about, it's better to take the steep road goin' down on our left side, so that we could also take a look at the little round WATCHING TOWER, whose aim was probably to let the guards watch over any possible kind of external threat. By the way! Don't you think it is a little strange for a castle to have just a single watch tower? But, let's suppose it existed more than one watching tower, doesn't it look weird that for the defense of a so little castle, it (eventually) existed a so complicated watching system?? Well, if we move just little bit lower, still goin' straight on the way we're walking on, we'll find the probably answer to all our questions...
A few
metres near, in fact, there's the building we improperly call PALAZZO DUCALE
("Duke's
Palace")
with its typical bizantine
style windows, recently restored to its ancient magnificence thanks
to the passion of its
actual owner. Well, talking about it, we said we
"improperly" call it "Duke's Palace" simply because the main characteristic of this palace is that...there are no
ancient documents at
all that tells about it!! The suspect about it, is so simple as fascinating: it probably was,
both with the Castle we talked before, part of the original
Baia's Castle! In fact, watching carefully the two buildings it's easy to notice
that both are placed on the same level, at the same height and also builded with
the same material, so that they probably were a sole
construction.
Anyway some researches are actually tryin' to give a logical
answer to this question...
Let's go back to the main façade of the
Castle (the place where we previously saw the stone chiseled with the "Norman
Cross"..) and let's descend down towards the Medieval Baglio: we're gonna flank,
on our left side, a wall fortress with a curious particular to notice: some "fire-windows"
probably used by the archers; more, it's easy to notice also the whole due to
the anchorages of the guards wood gangways (!!). Well, actually this wall
perfectly connect straightly the Castle tower to the Duke's Palace, and this
simply means that, at least on this side, the whole building MUST have been a
solid unique body...!
Anyway, watching it from this side, the Duke's Palace is even more imposing with its solid stones structure. And exactly under the Palazzo Ducale there's also another majestic stone structure: the wonderful BAGLIO MEDIEVALE, the hugest and best preserved in town. On the left side one can see the enormous blocks of stone that are the main incredibly foundations of the Baglio and the Palazzo Ducale.
Exiting from the Baglio, let's walk the stone pavemented way on our right side and let's follow it straight 'til a little beautiful square that still whisper of ancient romantic traditions. We'll notice a half-hidden tight passage on the right: let's take it paying attention to the (unlucky!) unsafe walls surrounding us and we will reach the high side of Piazza Morrone. Behind us, we've left one those wonderful postcards views that are typical in our town and are worthy to photograph: to see it, it is enough simply to turn back...
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