La Rosa Blu 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.<br><br>

... be equally funny, but you get the feeling he's a bit of a nutter. Danny feels a bit more like a put-opon sap, the kind of character Steve Carrell would play.<br><br>Friends Like These is the non-fictional account of how Danny, upon coming across an old address book of his 12 best friends growing up, searches across the UK and eventually around the world to find and meet up with them face to face before his 30th ...

... Dan got a map of Pompeii and we saw like 1/16 of the ruin! I was dissapointed we couldn't see more but Enzo did say that it would take 2 days to see all of the ruin. The bus ride from Pompeii to Bari was a few hours, we stop for a snack/lunch/toilet break after a few hours. Dan and I had a calzone and a drink, we bought some onion pretzels, pepsi and paprika italian pringles for munchies on the ferry.<br> We made the ferry on time ...

... 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. <br><br>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!

... are only a small number of sleeping cabins that have to be booked way in advance and cost a lot of money. So like a lot of other people our ticket was "deck space". Meaning we could find a piece of floor somewhere and sleep. It turned out to be a pretty uncomfortable nights rest tossing and turning with about 200 other people all crammed into every nook and cranny of the boat.<br>

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.

... Italian wedding in a very impressive cathedral. Had pizza in a lovely restaurant and walked along the seafront. We then ate pizza again for dinner and this time it was a much more authentic experience. We headed away from the tourist ridden old town into some side streets and ate in a little restaurant where no one spoke English. We got by with Dave's little European phrase book, Dave even figured out how to ask if he could see the pizza oven which ...

... shared a bottle of white wine, had some great pasta for the first course, and grilled fish with vegetables for the second course. Even at our very random hotel, we got a complimentary breakfast with the most amazing chocolate croissants ever. So for all of Bari's randomness, I'm happy to report that we ate very well there. Getting warmer, but still looking for that steamy, hot beach weather. Off to Greece to find the islands...

... a small town in the heel of the Italian boot. A pleasant change from Bari, Lecce is a sweet little baroque town filled with exquisite buildings, churches (mainly 16th &amp; 17th century), and the remains of a Roman amphitheatre from 2nd century AD. After exploring Lecce, I headed to Matera. Matera is a Unesco world heritage site as it houses the 'Sassi'- peasant cave houses from medieval times (built of stone, half-constructed and half-bored ...

... group, we stopped to chat about the incident while the 4 men separated and casually hopped on to the next bus across the road. The whole security thing spoiled Rome a bit for me. Rome has a lot more to offer than we were able to see and I am a bit disappointed we didn't stay long enough to get a good feel about Rome. I'll jot it down in my 'must see properly' memory file. Naturally we took the motorway to Bari and hardly stopped for a break as Lou and Lynn were waiting for ...