Hotel 7 Mari Bari

... shouldn't have taken the first agent's word for it. Seemed to be ships sailing at all hours - must surely have been one with space on it overnight? Definitely the only way to do this route.However, we get by: but I wouldn't recommend Ventourist line: cheap, for sure; but tacky -very, very tacky!Another night in an anonymous port.

... interrupted Homicide for about 2 days to scarf it down. One thing that might make a difference is whether you've read Danny's preceding books:
Are You Dave Gorman? where Danny bets Dave he can't find 56 other Dave Gormans
Join Me where Danny starts a cult by accident
Yes Man where Danny vows to never say no to anything anymore

They're all true accounts and equally funny, but Friends Like These ...

... paper doesn't go down the toilet, it goes in the bin). After a second opinion from another person, I marched down to reception and demanded the bin be changed. Someone came immediately and changed it, not with good grace I may add. This helped straight away, but the stink was still not great.
We went for a walk and wandered the boat, alot of the chairs were taken due to people having no cabins and trying to find a good place to ...

... typically Italian, it was little surprise to find that this was once part of ancient Magna Graecia; in fact you are more likely to stumble upon Greek temples than you are Roman ruins. Known in Italy as a land of myth and fable, this little region was clearly full of surprises.

Whenever I think back to the first day in Basilicata, images of mountains, beautiful scenery and sunny skies fill my thoughts - a lovely start to the holiday!

... cafe, we couldn't get any service. We kept getting cut in line and the register people would help us. Apparently they don't like tourists here...so, no coffee.

Took a train from Napoli to Caserta. In caserta I finally got a coffee, and all it was was this tiny little shot glass with the most potent coffee I've ever had...pretty tasty though. We met some people here who ...

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.

Pete was also called Pietro while in Italy. :-)

Trullo comes from the Greek word, "tholos" – meaning “dome”. See the pictures of the wee houses.

We found the Belvedere pub here too - also the name of our local in Aus – meaning “beautiful view”. It was beautiful.

... to find a pharmacy, it's a long ferry journey and I don't travel so well, I never get sick but I do start to feel a bit rough after a while and I have no idea what the sailing conditions may bring. Relief of sorts I see a sign for Carrefour, my motto is "where there's a Carrefour there is every other type of outlet". One hour later I arrive at Carrefours having been bullied by the Italian drivers, suffered from Sat Nav sending me up a road which ordinarily ...

... was a little sea breeze. Saw a big red just off full moon rising over the sea for solstice night..magical. We went into Lecce - a city with amazing architecture, lots of gargoyle type things. We got there early evening and had a guy tell us he'd keep an eye on the van - he'd shown us a parking space in the carpark and hovered around waiting for a tip so we gave him a €. The only trouble was it was in a market so we had to move by 7 am. We went and had a pizza, scruff didn't like it ...

... for, was a filthy shithole (see attached photo of bathroom). It was so bad that Michelle went back to the reception desk and requested another room. The upgrade was a little better, but definitely still not worth the price we paid. Once we set foot in Bari we felt much better. The impression we had was that this port town was going to be sketchy and desolate. It turned out to be pretty nice. We wandered around the old town district, stopped in a cafe for some ...

Bari 5 September 2005 - Monday In Bari we docked at about 14:00, but didn't venture into the city as was still on my lonesome waiting for my cabin mates, who finally pitched up but with NO LUGGAGE!!! Such bad luck, they'd been ...