That day, the royal couple arrived in Puglia, after having visited other Italian locations: first in Bari where they visited the cathedral of San Sabino and then went to Trani and Molfetta where there was also a school group waiting for them. «It’s the most beautiful place we’ve seen so far», stammered the princess in Trani, welcomed in Piazza Duomo by a large crowd of people.
An article from La Repubblica describes in detail what happened that morning:
The bells of the cathedral rang out loudly. Baron Broquier d’Ameli, magnificent prior of the Archconfraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, the archbishop and the entire Chapter in ceremonial vestments flanked the royal couple entering the church. The show was memorable, a “guache” of violent colors: the white Romanesque cathedral surrounded by the sea like a ship, the arch at the end of which the horizon can be seen the Britannia at anchor, the immense mass of the Norman Castle on the waters blue, the clear and tense sky and the scented air of the arriving summer. Charles and Diana listened to the legend of Saint Nicholas to whom the church is named, the tale of the boy pilgrim who came from Greece riding a dolphin; then they go down into the crypt and exchanged a look of surprise in front of the graffiti of the tourists who decorated the walls with the frescoes: Di Fonso Nicola loves Pinuccia Di Meo, hearts, arrows, long live Juventus. When they go out into the square they give themselves over to a short tour of the crowd, flattered not without fear by so much popular enthusiasm. The group of “royal reporters” who came from England photographed Carlo while he was rescuing a five-year-old girl who was crushing her hand between two barriers; with Herculean thoughtfulness the prince raised the steel barriers: “Are you all right?” she asked her little girl in tears and Diana, a very rare privilege, granted her a slow caress on the cheek.
