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Published: June 21st 2008
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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 are huge! We did most of them at a brisk trot when we could wade our way through the rivers of people doing the same. The highlight of this visit was obviously the Sistine chapel, although Raphael's rooms came in as a solid second. The Sistine chapel also has it's own resident 'bouncers', continually shushing people, telling them to put their cameras
away and to put on decent clothing as the place is a church.
After a big day sightseeing we looked up our mechanic and with the help of a friendly customer with some English we managed to explain Bert's current problems and some other bits and pieces which it would also be nice to have looked at. The mechanic looked rather hesitant, waved his arms around a lot, and managed to communicate that "old foreign parts could cause problems but that we should return on Wednesday."
The next day was spent on ancient Roma and the usual tourist hit list of popular fountains and public sculpture. We took in the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Pantheon of which the Colosseum was definitely the show stopper. The Pantheon was also interesting as it was obviously a Roman temple which the Catholic Church had stolen and simply chucked a few pictures and statues into to call it a church. We also took in the "mouth of truth", a large sculptured mouth at the front of a church which is supposed to snap shut on your hand if you tell a lie. This was a bit of a waste of time
as the sculpture was entirely mobbed by Asian tourists mugging for photos with one hand in the mouth and the other making a peace sign....
We also waded through even more tourists at the Trevi fountain to chuck our coins in to guarantee a return to Rome in the future. This spot also had more Italian bouncers, guys equipped with whistles to make sure the tourists didn't stick their feet in the water or misbehave in any other way. Unfortunately the 'four rivers' fountain was undergoing cleaning and restoration work so we didn't get a clear view of this one :-(
Come Wednesday morning it was D-day for Bert. We took him down to the garage, but were stopped by the mechanic before even getting him in the door, where he looked under the bonnet, and pronounced "foreign parts, sorry I can't help you". Rather frustrated with this we took on board his directions to the nearest GM/Opel dealer/mechanic, and trundled a few more miles down the road - still with no indicators. This next guy pronounced that he was too busy to help us and directed us to an even larger Opel dealership closer to the centre
of Rome. We again made it to these guys without indicators, only to be told that "they only worked on Opel's!!" By now we had had enough of Roman mechanics so decided to leave town and look for a smaller place with a mechanic (or an auto electrician) who worked on any brand of car and wanted our money.
Finally out of town we stopped near Terracina which is mid way between Rome and Napoli and had a rather nice beach. The campground put us onto a local auto electrician who started telling us that he couldn't help to our dismay, but we quickly worked out that he was only saying he couldn't fix it that afternoon :-)
We spent a couple of very pleasant days at the beach in Terracina awaiting our turn to get our repairs done - which the guy managed to effect in 30 minutes flat! Apparently it was a very simple fault with old fuse holders having broken electrical connections which a couple of blobs of solder easily fixed (no foreign parts required!).
With a fully functional van and after our refreshing beach break, we continued our tour south and dropped in
on the ruins of Pompeii. Thankfully we had a bit of cloud cover and a breeze so we didn't get totally roasted and spent some time wandering the cobbled alleys of this extremely well preserved Roman town. It was rather surprising to see the great state of preservation of even some of the interior decorative paintings of the larger houses. Photos are attached which probably speak better for themselves.
Next up on our itinerary was another beach break this time at a small place called Laura just north of Paestum (lots of beach time required in the high 30 degree heat!).
This beach stop was one where we picked up a new bad habit - the requirement of loungers and umbrellas at the beach. Yes we know it is not very Kiwi but they are rather comfy and the umbrella is pretty invaluable.....
Paestrum also has some really fantastic Greek temple ruins. Photos attached, which show structures which are a lot more elegant than the somewhat chunky and functional Roman architecture. We really enjoyed this site, especially as we pretty much had it too ourselves early in the morning.
Further down south took us to another
beach, this time along a rather twisty and windy coastal road to Praia a Mare. We previously decided against trying to drive the Amalfi coast in a 'campervan' as some people we had run into recently had taken four hours to drive the 50 km distance in a car with no stops! However, our substitute road on the way to Praia was quite navigable and included a number of pull off spots allowing us to enjoy the view of four or five headlands nested against each other on the horizon, and the huge cliffs we were driving along the top of.
Praia was quite unique for us as the beach was made up of large smooth stones, but the water was incredibly clean with great visibility. Some beach loungers here were again essential as we took shelter from yet more scorching hot days (33 degrees in the shade at 5.30 pm!).
Over the last few days we have been visiting some more beaches on our way towards Bari, including a stop at Sibari and Metaponto. We are getting rather brown in readiness for the next leg of our tour in Greece, which hopefully won't be too much hotter
than Southern Italy!
We have now passed the 6000 mile mark with Bert and are looking forward to what is probably the second half of our van tour starting with Greece. We found a hypermarket yesterday and have loaded up on all the foody nibbly goodies which we think are the pick of Italy. We have some concerns about the availability of good wine in Greece so we also have the "cellar" fully stocked up now as well :-)
That's it from us for now.
Ciao
S & S
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