Mercure Villa Romanazzi Carducci 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 ...

... especially by kids - it just sounds so BOUNCY. But holy **** it makes every whine sound that much more insufferable<br><br><br>The Complete Pollysyllabic Spree<br>Nick Hornby<br>purchased and completed a few years ago<br>===============================< br>OK this is a slight cheat in that I read this book shortly after it first came out. But it's salient because it's a book of book reviews from which I'm ...

... was another accident, and guess who it was... yep the hatchback with the kid lying across the back window!!<br><br>These people are lunitics on the road, plain and simple!! Or then of course there were the enormous piles of rubbish on the side of the road, one of which self combusted in the heat and was smoking with flames!!! A totally different part of Italy to what we had seen days earlier!<br><br>Anyway we make it to Bari in time to board the overnight ferry ...

... 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 most surprising thing I found before leaving England was that no one even know where Basilicata was! Even friends who thought they knew Italy well weren't aware of Basilicata as its not very well known. On the plane from Stansted, most of the English people we spoke were going on holiday to visit family or friends and most were staying in Puglia, not Basilicata. <br><br>If you're planning to visit Basilicata, you will defintely need ...

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.

My last evening brought about an attempt by Kristina to communicate, she's worked ******* her charades and we managed to spend some quality time in front of the TV in not absolute silence, nearly but not quite, bless! she bought me a hot chocolate. This morning brings a beautiful crisp, bright morning. There is a warm glow over the Piazza Grande, bicycles clatter across the cobbles, all is well with the world. I hadn't mentioned before but Modena is a ...

... Which was horrible, because it was so hot, and Erin and i were both feeling a little sick from that spaghetti. (we wont go into details....) but then we foubnd our hostel in Athens, and had showers, took our laundry to be done, and then found food, and water, and internet. Then we tried to go to bed, but its really hard when you feel like your cooking from the outside in. And the hostel claims it had air conditioning....LIARS!!! but thats about all for the ride here... onto actual Athens!

After one day in Rome it's another non-stop travel day which takes us to Bari where we have a 10pm overnight ferry which takes us to Dubrovnik, Croatia. (AKA: long day). However we had a couple hours to kill in Bari and had to find ways to occupy our time. I like Bari because it's authentic Italy. A coastal city which only sees the random traveler because of its ferry ...

... to attend school and learn Italian. Anyway they are good guys and I might meet up with them they I get to Florance. We walked around Bari for a few hours waiting for our ferries and had a couple bottles of wine. Bari was a real surprise, it is clean, the people are friendly and it had a good vibe to it. I have to close this log before my time runs out.