Blogs from Bari, Apulia, Italy, Europe - page 3

We left our overprıced hotel and made our way to the Barı - Patros ferry. We had quıte a waıt ahead of us but who really mınds waıtıng when the weather ıs clear and the temperature ıs hot? We sat on the only portsıde ın Europe not to sell water, ıt took half an hour of searchıng before we found an expensıve vendıng machıne to quench our thırst. As normal, after sıttıng besıde the bıke we soon had a small crowd of excıted onlookers. Our new frıends for today were a bunch of BMW borne bıkers from Turkey who took a flurry of photos, added theır group stıcker to our bıke and then made theır way to theır ferry wıth happy goodbyes and ınvıtatıons to stay wıth them on the other sıde of the water. Our ... read more

Saturday, 22nd November, 2008 Plan for today, Acireale to Cosenza. The wind really got up last night and things were banging and clattering around the Hotel. We were both awake early, so got up and started sorting ourselves out, as we have a long day. Pat went down to breakfast and then we paid our bill at reception and left the Hotel just before nine o'clock. We went for the Autostrada up to Messina, which was very light with traffic. The winds got stronger as we approached Messina, although the sun was shining and the temperature on the car said 22°C. We left the Autostrada on the last exit for Messina, the signposting for the ferries is very poor. The signs got better and we headed through some strange parts of town and eventually ended up ... read more

Ciao! We made it to Pulgia Italy--and are about to start our day 3 of bike riding! So far no saddle sores! Internet access has been challenging...as the definition of internet access is one computer per hotel! Plane flight from SFO to Dulles went great! I sat next to a well behaved--and thin young lawyer in coach and jim stretched out his legs in business class. At Dulles- we got lucky and upgraded me to business class- as they still had seats available! We had a great flight to Rome....and with the help of medication--I do feel like I actually slept on the plane! We arrived in Rome to a taxi strike!! But we got a private car to drive us to our hotel where we were able to check in even though it was about ... read more

Hi everyone from Southern Italy. We are presently in Bari on the southeast coast, waiting for our ferry to Greece (Patras) tonight. Since our last post we headed out of Tuscany and down to Rome. The drive from Siena down was a little interesting as the van developed a bit of an electrical problem which wiped out our 5th gear/overdrive, windscreen wipers, indicators and other ancillary electrics. We limped tensely down to Roma and found a nice rural campground on the outskirts of town on a Sunday night. The campground operators put us onto a local mechanic who we aimed to look up on Monday after a bit of sightseeing in town. We spent this Monday "penguin spotting" in Vatican city, checking out St Paul's and the Vatican museums complete with the Sistine chapel. These museums ... read more

Since the statue of David’s site was closed on Monday, we decided to try to get a couple of quick shots before leaving. Big mistake. The streets were crawling with tourists and students. There were at least 4 to 5 hundred people waiting in line for David so we decided to skip it and head south. After a couple hours of driving, it started to rain hard and there was a bad accident on the freeway. We sat waiting for the involved cars to be moved off the road for about 45 minutes. Lisa decided she was going to drive to day, looks like every time she drives there is an accident we have to either detour or sit waiting for traffic. Today is our marathon drive to get from Florence to Bari (Bari is a ... read more