Hotel Corte Altavilla 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 ...

... on the show. One of the homicide detectives, Ed Burns, is co-creator of The Wire. You get the idea. It's a great finale for anyone who's finished the show and is suffering from withdrawal (for anyone who hasn't watched the show, DO SO NOW).

I bought Homicide at a Waterstones attached to one of those Little Chef rest stops the weekend Rachel, Sundeep and I rented and drove a car to the Cotswolds ...

... literally carved out of the soft tufa stone of the hillside and ravine. The fronts of the caves were covered with brick, stone, and plaster facades to make them look like normal buildings. People lived in the cave houses of the Sassi for thousands of years and as recently as 1960 there were still 30,000 people living in them.

The Sassi was the poorest area in all of Italy and was called Italy’s greatest slum and greatest shame. Most residents lived with ...

... 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 ...

Where to start! Martera and the Sassi are absolutley beautiful - definitley a must see when visiting Basilicata.

Matera,the second largest town in Basilicata is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, thanks to its extraordinary labyrinth of caves, used as dwellings as recently as the 1950s, and which are literally part of the town – under your feet, beside you, and around the next corner. Many ...

... 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!

... and utah. They were incredibly nice. One of them has been in Italy for years and said he hadn't even talked to an American in 4 months. He was really excited to talk to us and find out what was going on back home. They spoke fluent italian and asked people where to find the bus stop. The Italian people led us on a wild goose hunt all around the city, and the missionaries insisted on coming with us. I'm so glad we found them! When we finally found our bus stop we insisted that we ...

... After we found some comfy chairs to crazh on for a couple of hours in the none smoking section. Once we docked in Patras we caught a train to athens, but because our frist train was late we had to wait an extra hour for the connecting train in some small none english speaking town. It was drazy confusion because there was a group of us that this had happened too. We found someone who was able to give us great directions to get us to the square beside our ...

... At one point, Amy whispered to me, "I hope you do not really have to sleep on the deck." (We had one deck ticket and a four-person cabin, and were hoping to sneak Jim in with the others and double two kids in a bunk.) At 10:20 p.m., we were about to go through security when we were suddenly shunted outside. The security guy had no English. We ended up with about twenty ...

We made our way to Bari by train. We shared a carriage with a man about our age, who was of eastern extraction (deja vu) and using his I Pod. I can only assume he had never sung without the ear plugs in, as we had the benefit of him moaning along to every song in the Asian Top 40 for most of the trip. Despite this minor setback, we arrived in Bari. Ferry food tends to be both **** and expensive, so Alex decides the plan of action is to find a supermarket and ...