Back to traveling…yuck.
November 20, 2006
Sorry no photos today...shucks!
Okay, we’ve had 5 relaxing, calm, non-sight seeing, non-ruins looking, non-church/cathedral/basilica days. We should be ready to hit the road…WRONG!
We packed up…yuck number 1…and for some reason although the bags are the same size and the contents haven’t changed in the last 5 days everything doesn’t seem to fit right. Great.
We packed up the rental car, which I’m so glad we have been paying to park and not use for 5 days, and headed off to Bari, which is on the other coast of Italy…basically, to quote Karen, we drove a little ankle bracelet across the boot of Italy. The drive took us first back to Napoli (Naples) along the Mr. Toad’s Wild ride roads along the seashore. It was spectacular being able to see the entire view on the drive out. Breathtaking. We then jumped on the “free-for-all-freeway” and headed towards Bari.
The drive was about 3 hours long and it was our 2nd day of rain during our entire trip in Italy. Luckily, we just had to drive through it, stop for gas in it and by the time we hit Bari it was gone.
We had originally planned to try and drop the car off at an Avis place not for from the ferry terminal, but once again we got lost. The nerves were slightly frayed already as we were running a bit behind so getting lost wasn’t adding to the fun and enjoyment of the day…especially when we realized “hey we’ve been here before.” We ended up taking the car back to the airport as luckily there were signs for Aeroporto. We dropped off the car with no issues and then had to haul our luggage to the taxi stand to get a taxi to the ferry terminal.
Now, to put it lightly, we are SO sick of hauling all of our stuff around and the taxi stand wasn’t just right around the corner…as usual. So, off we went. We found it, but were coming from the very end of the line up and of course couldn’t take the first taxi we came across. We had to haul all of our stuff by about 20 waiting taxis to get up to the very first one in line.
Now, I’ve mentioned that Italians drive like they are all in a race driving Ferraris. Well, our taxi driver thought he was rushing someone to the ER. The poor little taxi was hurtling down the roads at goodness knows how fast as the gauges weren’t working in the car and the CD player was skipping every few seconds. Good news is we got to the terminal in a very short time…and we arrived alive. But, to be honest, after traveling for so much and getting to our wits end, we just sat back in the taxi ride from hell and rested. Just going with the flow and talking about where we were going next…if we survived this leg.
We check-in and boarded the Love Boat wannabe ferry and were shown to our rooms. When booking the ferry we had a couple of options for our 15 hour overnight cruise – no reserved seat, an air bed (i.e., a reserved seat), dorm with 2 or 4 others or dorm to ourselves. I chose dorm to ourselves and thank goodness we did as the ferry is chocked full of Italian and Greek truckers up in the bars smoking away over a beer.
We went and grabbed a quick bite to eat and had retired to our room before the ferry even set off. We have our own bathroom, which is so great and we are all kicked out on the beds reading and writing.
The ferry arrives at 12:30 PM tomorrow – we lose another hour tomorrow – and then we finally arrive into Athens around 7PM after a 3 1/2 hour train ride. Oh joy. It’s going to be a long travel day!
Sorry no photos today...shucks!
Okay, we’ve had 5 relaxing, calm, non-sight seeing, non-ruins looking, non-church/cathedral/basilica days. We should be ready to hit the road…WRONG!
We packed up…yuck number 1…and for some reason although the bags are the same size and the contents haven’t changed in the last 5 days everything doesn’t seem to fit right. Great.
We packed up the rental car, which I’m so glad we have been paying to park and not use for 5 days, and headed off to Bari, which is on the other coast of Italy…basically, to quote Karen, we drove a little ankle bracelet across the boot of Italy. The drive took us first back to Napoli (Naples) along the Mr. Toad’s Wild ride roads along the seashore. It was spectacular being able to see the entire view on the drive out. Breathtaking. We then jumped on the “free-for-all-freeway” and headed towards Bari.
The drive was about 3 hours long and it was our 2nd day of rain during our entire trip in Italy. Luckily, we just had to drive through it, stop for gas in it and by the time we hit Bari it was gone.
We had originally planned to try and drop the car off at an Avis place not for from the ferry terminal, but once again we got lost. The nerves were slightly frayed already as we were running a bit behind so getting lost wasn’t adding to the fun and enjoyment of the day…especially when we realized “hey we’ve been here before.” We ended up taking the car back to the airport as luckily there were signs for Aeroporto. We dropped off the car with no issues and then had to haul our luggage to the taxi stand to get a taxi to the ferry terminal.
Now, to put it lightly, we are SO sick of hauling all of our stuff around and the taxi stand wasn’t just right around the corner…as usual. So, off we went. We found it, but were coming from the very end of the line up and of course couldn’t take the first taxi we came across. We had to haul all of our stuff by about 20 waiting taxis to get up to the very first one in line.
Now, I’ve mentioned that Italians drive like they are all in a race driving Ferraris. Well, our taxi driver thought he was rushing someone to the ER. The poor little taxi was hurtling down the roads at goodness knows how fast as the gauges weren’t working in the car and the CD player was skipping every few seconds. Good news is we got to the terminal in a very short time…and we arrived alive. But, to be honest, after traveling for so much and getting to our wits end, we just sat back in the taxi ride from hell and rested. Just going with the flow and talking about where we were going next…if we survived this leg.
We check-in and boarded the Love Boat wannabe ferry and were shown to our rooms. When booking the ferry we had a couple of options for our 15 hour overnight cruise – no reserved seat, an air bed (i.e., a reserved seat), dorm with 2 or 4 others or dorm to ourselves. I chose dorm to ourselves and thank goodness we did as the ferry is chocked full of Italian and Greek truckers up in the bars smoking away over a beer.
We went and grabbed a quick bite to eat and had retired to our room before the ferry even set off. We have our own bathroom, which is so great and we are all kicked out on the beds reading and writing.
The ferry arrives at 12:30 PM tomorrow – we lose another hour tomorrow – and then we finally arrive into Athens around 7PM after a 3 1/2 hour train ride. Oh joy. It’s going to be a long travel day!
posted by jscdn - europe at 3:45 AM
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