Day Eight (Saturday)

One more important fact

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Today was July 1st, Tyler's birthday. My little boy turned 21 and was no legal for almost any purpose except renting a car in Europe. Of course, Gail had to embarass him by mentioning this to the waiters who then got the entire room of people, many of whom weren't in our tour group, to sing "Happy Birthday".

Arrivederci Salvatore!

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This would be our last day in Italy. The reason we were in such a hurry to leave Pompeii was because we had to drive all the way across Italy to the Aegean port of Brindisi where we were to catch an early evening ferry to Greece.

Across the boot

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The drive across the breadth of Italy would take 4 hours without stops and of course, Salvatore had to make his mandatory stops on the way. It seemed like a very long ride through some rather unexciting territory but I got a nice nap and had time to watch a movie on my Creative Zen Vision. Most of the land we drove through was devoted to wheat production. I guess this might be the breadbasket of Italy.

Gail's room aboard the Ouranos

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We arrived at the huge ferry terminal of Brindisi at 5:00. We had to sit around the un-air-conditioned terminal for about an hour before boarding. Waiting around in the crowded terminal made me just a bit nervous about going to a land I had never been to before. Judging from all the women in veils and very dark-looking men I started to think we might be heading for the Middle East. It turned out that these people were mostly Albanians. Igoumenitsa, the Greek city we were traveling too, is only a few miles from the Albanian border. Gail and her mother stayed in this room. Mine was identical but I had it all to myself. All things considered, it was pretty decent accomodations. Best of all, the entire ship was air-conditioned.

Out of Italy

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We spent a couple hours on board ship just waiting in port. Cars and trucks kept showing up and getting loaded on board. No big deal because we already had our rooms and our bags were on board. But we couldn't eat dinner until we left port and by now I was starving.

Finally we leave Brindisi

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It was after 10:00 pm when we finally left - yes, it's still light until almost 11:00. This is a little fort and lighthouse guarding the harbor.

Our last pasta

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After 8 dinners in Italy, almost all of which included pasta of some sort, we bid adieu by endulging in even more of that staple food. Our ferry accomodations included our dinner. The cuisine ranked somewhere between airline food and high school cafeteria grub but at least we got a lot of it. After dinner the Wine Club took over a section of the main deck where we polished off a few more bottles of Italy's cheapest. Someone brought crackers and cheese and I brought the rest of my trail mix. The party broke up around midnight partly because of the lateness and partly due to the fact that we were freezing up on deck.