Grand Hotel Oriente Bari

As it turns out, filling that day wasn't so much of a problem.... we tootled out of town, found a beach, wandered about & looked at the boats; tootled back, found somewhere to eat, had a chat with a few Brits and - hey presto! - before you knew it, time for bed! But the one on board was a bit more of a challenge... all 13 hours of it! BIG ...

... I saw it at Borders the day on my last day in London and knew by page 10 I couldn't not take bring it with me.<br><br>Even without the obvious resonance specific to my trip, it's a great read that anyone who's experienced the oh-my-god-I-just-got-pinged-by-someone- I-haven't-thought-of-in-years on Facebook will appreciate. And an easy one, at that - at 200ish pages in large print and with several photos ...

... around 3.30pm, carried our bags accross and up the elevators to the reception. We got our swipe card and not escorted but told to go a floor up to our cabin. The cabin was small and SMELLED SO BAD it was disgusting. As Dave would say, it smelled like ass. Horrid and stinky were were not happy, as you opened the bathroom the smell got worse. There was an inch or 2 of water on the floor and the bin had remenants of being used (ie ...

... the coastal resorts in August - the idea of travelling somewhere quiet and undiscovered was very appealing.<br>We passed very few cars on the journey to Matera, which was actually rather refreshing having spent last summer trying to get away from the over-crowded tourist resorts.<br><br>As the road headed up to the mountains, we passed ancient hilltop towns and villages clinging to rocky limestone plateaus. Often seeming more Greek than ...

Woke up at the Hostel early to a catch our train.<br><br>Took an hour long train to Napoli. In Napoli we had about 45 minutes till our next train, so we decided to get coffee. Apparently here, you go the the register (before you can look at anything) and order what you want. Then you take it to the counter and they give you what you ordered...crazy. Well after 3 attempts each at a ...

This is where Pietro, an old Italian guy, jumped into Bruce and navigated us to the trulli. He saved us from a traffic jam in the narrow streets of Puglia.<br><br>Pete was also called Pietro while in Italy. :-)<br><br>Trullo comes from the Greek word, "tholos" &#8211; meaning &#8220;dome&#8221;. See the pictures of the wee houses.<br><br>We found the Belvedere pub here too - also the name of our local in Aus &#8211; meaning &#8220;beautiful view&#8221;. It was beautiful.

It's sailing day, my ticket is wrong so I decide to get to the port early. I have to say I am perfecting the art of getting clean, even when I have to sleep in the car, a kettle of water suffices to provide enough hot water to have a basic wash in a secluded corner of the services and a hair wash. Clean clothes make me feel humanish, followed by tea and a warm pastry I'm 100% ready to face whatever vagaries my day navigating Italy has to throw at me. I set off ...

... phrasebook that was meant for Italians to speak English, it turned my head inside out trying to look up the things I wanted to say. We got by with a lot of patience and the help of pen and paper for pictures. He lives there year round, but is only really busy in august, lonely life!(the whole thing reminded Lena of psycho, so she refers to him as Norman Bates - it was a little scary being passively held captive up in the restaurant). We woke up to find ourselves surrounded by wild horses ...

... an airplane-type seat or deck passage. The public spaces seemed much nicer than the cabins. Anyway, after surviving a night on a glorified cargo ship, we enjoyed a pleasant day in Italy. The weather was perfect, and there's not a lot to do in Bari (sightseeing-wise), so we spent a lot of our time hanging out in the park. I think Mitch got a nice preview of Italy for when we return someday - we had some great coffee, pizza, and gelato, saw lots of couples seriously ...

... Naples- the home of pizza. Put my bags into luggage storage and made a phone call to mum. In the middle of my long conversation, a man came up to me to talk to me. He offered me a job as a secretary?? Quite strange I thought, I told him I was on holiday and leaving the country. Weird. i couldn't see myself as a secretary ever. After finishing my conversation, I headed out of the station to find a nice ...