Hotel Moderno 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 ...

... facade that Japan presents the west. But the characters themselves come off as impressions of tortured souls less than actual people.

Maybe after spending some more time in Tokyo I'll give it, or more likely Out, another read.

The one interesting thing I did pick up from this book is that happas apparently lose their stunning good looks as they approach middle age - sorry Robbo.


Bari, Puglia, Italy david_chung

... red light district of the neigbourhood and the freizes on the walls. This was pretty interesting..and about all we had time for. We wandered out and had a Granita- orange for Dan and blackberry for me. We walked around the stalls selling touristy stuff, they were pretty desperate for a sale which didn't make you want to buy anything!
Another Granita and a sit down later, we walk to the bus to get back on head off to the Greek ...

... the coastal resorts in August - the idea of travelling somewhere quiet and undiscovered was very appealing.
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.

As the road headed up to the mountains, we passed ancient hilltop towns and villages clinging to rocky limestone plateaus. Often seeming more Greek ...

... 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.

... but I am aware that the Corfu vehicles have to embark first and I'm getting jittery, the boat is due to leave at 7pm and it's now 6.15 and I still wait. I walk up to an official and ask again, boy did he light up, shouted a lot of very fast Italian at me, waved a lot and generally looked quite unhappy, I deduce he has cocked up and forgotten some of the Corfu drivers. We are hastily sent in the direction of the ferry only to get swallowed up amongst the ...

... sucked. Nasty mess. Anyway, we grubbed on some cheap pizza (very Italian), espresso (yes, I typed that- espressssssso), and some of that leftover bread. We boarded the train at 1:30, Greg in his 2nd class coach and I in my 1st.class seat (my first real experience with 1st class- very nice!), and settled in for the 5 hour ride up through the Italian countryside. And what a gorgeous ride it was! The train literally glided along the rails, rising on occasions ...

... to have our staple brunch of bread, cheese, marmalade and fresh fruit. All in all it was a lovely stop we were happy to make before our sail across the Adriatic. The Jadrolina would be our ferry to Dubrovnik. We weren't expecting the luxury of our ferry to Bari, but this boat was still an extreme disappointment. The boat had bugs. We killed 3 in our cabin before we went to bed. We smuggled meat, cheese and bread onto the ship though the signs at ...

... little interesting but we didn't go in. I probably only say that it looked interesting because it was a little different from others I've seen. I wanted to go to the old town but Guiseppe told me it would be too dangerous. Scary! We hung out in the park - I bought Guiseppe a beer as payback for the coffee. I had a prosciutto sandwich .... ahhh ... it's been awhile, my old friend! There are lots of street vendors selling knock-off items (all minorities ...