According to the Lonely Planet guides it was once considered to be the Bronx of Italy, but Bari’s transition to high-class holiday destination seems complete, with the arrival of a new Prada store on one of city’s main shopping streets.

The new 6,372-square-foot Prada store will open today on Via Sparano, stocking womenswear, menswear, accessories and, of course, given that it’s a holiday spot, luggage. It will be nestled among long-established furriers and leather goods stores and a smattering of new more fashion-led boutiques, which have opened to cater to the influx of fashiony holiday makers.

There’s Mimma Ninni, stocking evening and cocktail wear from Oscar de la Renta and Givenchy; Cecilia De Fano, which similarly caters to a dressy crowd with Lanvin and Fendi on the rails; and then there’s the cooler Boutique Luciana Bari, with its edit of Alexander Wang and Jil Sander.   

As well as attracting Italian urbanites from Rome and Milan, Bari, which is right down in the heel of Italy, has become a popular spot for stylish Londoners, who are keen to find somewhere a little less mainstream than Tuscany, a little cooler and more ‘real’, you know. 

It can still feel a little too ‘real’ though, and not in a lovely homemade-pasta-and-sun-soaked-vineyard way, but in a slightly unglamorous, not very affluent city way so you should plan your trip well. Hotels in the area are usually of the Hilton-on-a-roundabout variety so seek out somebody with a villa if you want to do Bari chicly. You can fly your Prada spoils home on a Ryanair though; they fly from Bari to Stansted four times a week.