Puglia's secret harbour city — a walled medieval old town of whitewashed alleys, a 16th-century sea castle built against Ottoman raids, and old-port fish grilled at tables the width of the street
Monopoli is one of Puglia's best-preserved yet least-touristed harbour cities — a medieval walled old town of densely packed white alleyways extending into the Adriatic on a small peninsula. The 16th-century Castello di Carlo V sits directly on the sea wall, and the old port is still an active fishing harbour. The wider Monopoli coast is a string of cove beaches cut into flat limestone shelves, with water clarity among the best on the Adriatic.
Monopoli's name comes from the Greek Monopólis ('single city'), suggesting it was the dominant settlement of the area. It passed through Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Swabian, Angevin, and Aragonese rule. The great castle on the seafront was commissioned by Emperor Charles V (Carlo V) in 1552 as part of a coastal defence network against Ottoman raids following the catastrophic 1480 Ottoman siege of Otranto — the same system that produced fortifications at Otranto, Brindisi, and Vieste.