Sheraton Nicolaus 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 ...

... will recall the story from the cold open of the show's first episode. Echoes and connections between Homicide, the non-fictional account of journalist David Simon's year spent tagging along with the Baltimore Police Homicide squads, and the HBO TV series he went onto create abound. McNulty's overweight sergeant, Jay Landsman, is named and modeled after the real life sergeant of the same name, who makes small ...

... 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 ...

... typically 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.

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!

... 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.

... back to town. We spent the next hour hunting for a market from which to buy supplies for the upcoming 14 hour boat ride. Fortunately for us, the shops reopened at 5PM and we were able to resupply before the 6:30 departure. After walking at least 6km with full backpacks, we found it ironic that the last 200m we travelled was aboard a complimentary shuttle bus. We boarded the ferry and departed the harbor after dark. I will detail our trip in my next entry.

... so we figured we'd wait with them. No one could tell us where the bus would be going, but we figured it was better than hanging out at the port. Eventually, a bus came and about 3,000 people jumped on with 50,000 pieces of luggage. We were crammed like sardines for a while, but the bus eventually ended up at the Central Station. Success! We found a tourist office that was open this time and the nice Italian woman handed us ...

... to be a nice rounnd 98 euros for the both of them. THAT SUCKS. Turned out later I met another girl who was on the same train, had a railpass, scored a seat a couple cars from us and was never asked for a fare or to move. WHAT. whatever. The second train was of course far better as we I had a seat thank God. Get me off trains!!! We pull into Bari, which any other day was pretty and looked worth exploring a good deal, but I wasn't taking any ...

... and I would totally travel with The Mir again. I donīt think I have ever gotten to know a person faster than with Miranda. We had some really great conversations about life and all that jazz, and it was kind of funny the different things that we picked up from each other (Mir now checks girls out for me and gives me a heads up when she sees a good one..... its almost too ...