Leon D'Oro Hotel 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 ...

... hire a car! We had decided to travel around the region rather than staying in one place, so we could really get a feel for what it was like. The further we drove from Bari and the Puglia border, the higher we rose, the wilder and more beautiful the scenery became. Basilicata is the most mountainous as well as the least known region of southern Italy. We found out before we came that tourism is not big in Basilicata, although Italians ...

... 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.

... you could stay the night, that had a little bar and restaurant) the owner was quite friendly when there were no other Italians there. (we figured it'd be bad for his image to be seen being friendly to English tourists) We went for some late lunch there after a walk, we were the only ones in there, he was very accommodating, made us the most delicious pasta dishes but then he wanted to talk, would'nt let us leave. It was really hard work though as he didn't speak English and I only had ...

Just passing through. I'd met some girls in a bar in Athens from Bari the year before. After getting along like a house on fire, it took 20 minutes to realise they were 16 and 17, on a school trip and the balding guy at the end of the table was the teacher. I kept a low profile in Bari.

... ferries in a row - it seemed wise to get some sleep at least one of those nights, and a cabin on Montenegro Lines was inexpensive compared to the Greek lines. I laugh now to think that we checked in as early as possible, so as to lounge around in our swanky cabin. The cabin was *disgusting* - even Mitch was a little appalled. Refer to the posted picture of the bathroom floor, which appeared not to have been cleaned in weeks. So, my advice for others is just to ...

Packed up and left the hostel. Decided to head to the train station at the bottom of the hill to save me from walking to the one at the top of the hill. The next train to leave the station at the bottom of the hill was in about an hour. Didn't want to waste time waiting around, so I walked to the station at the top of the hill. Arrived feeling hot and sweaty. Caught the train and 15 minutes later I was ...