Hotel Victor 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 ...

... opportunity.<br><br><br>David Copperfield<br>Charles Dickens<br>bought in Siena<br>=============<br>After letting me live in their country for 6 1/2 years and giving me a passport, I figure I owe it to the English to read their most prolific and popular writer. I'm only on page 242 of 800ish so I can't say much about it, but given the number of people who slam Dickens for his gratuitous verbosity (he got paid ...

... 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 ...

... also on the train (we ended up seeing them again later). They were an Australian couple.<br><br>We took our final train to Bari. When we got there we ran into 3 other back packers who happened to be from (believe it or not) SPOKANE, WASHINGTON!!! Unbelievable. <br><br>We took a bus to the ferry terminal, booked our ferry ride. Went back to the city for dinner and to get food for ...

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.

... Several passengers moved to other not so desirable seats. I don't like being bullied, I don't like confrontation but I'm English don't F**k with my territory, I paid for this seat and I'm staying. I dug into my trench! So there I am in quite a small compartment filled with what appeared to be a rather large village, all related of Bulgarians behaving very badly. I'm not succumbing to the blatant glares of the matriarchs who want the whole place to themselves ...

... occasion! We crossed the peninsula and I noticed Naples and the Mediterranean in the distance. Knowing we were approaching Rome (finally), I saw the ancient ruins of aquifers on the horizon! Very very cool. Greg and I thankfully met back up in the train station after being sepated on the cars. We made our way out into the streets of Rome (yes, that's ITALY, not Georgia) and got to the hostel with little difficulty. It is located in a gorgeous part of the ...

... sit in a busy park all day (probably the best location in town) and look at the pretty Italian women. The only price of doing business? The odd item that they "give" to the cops. Going with the Euro has been ******* Italians, apparently. Overnight, prices effectively doubled. You can tell that Guiseppe is a bit disenchanted with how things are in Italy right now. Bari isn't too bad .. but only for a few hours. Went to the bus station - the bus driver was the ...

Got in a crazy taxi from the train station to the ferry terminal and waited around for about two hours for tickets we hadn't reserved. It was hot, Our arms were tired from holding our packs almost the whole time and it was very stressful, not knowing whether we could get on the overnight ferry to Patras, Greece or not.