It is located 43 kilometers south-east of Bari and has about 49 thousand inhabitants (including hamlets). Monopoli represents, on the Adriatic, one of the most active and populous ports in the region. Its characteristic historical center of early medieval origin, superimposed on the remains of a fortified Messapian settlement already in the 5th century BC, overlooks the sea surrounded by high walls. Monopoli is also called “the city of a hundred districts”. The countryside is in fact divided into various locations called districts (although their number is less than one hundred units), whose toponyms evoke ancient farmhouses that have disappeared or the presence of a masseria, of churches and cave settlements, trulli, neoclassical patrician villas or houses farmhouses. The coast, almost 15 kilometers long, is low and jagged: with over 25 coves and wide sandy expanses it is particularly suitable for swimming and exploring underwater life.