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| Fountain in front of Bari's train station |
| Glenn's Positano Journals 5-15-02, Part 1 This morning started around 7:00 am as I had set the alarm on my watch to allow time for a shower and preparation to depart the ship around 8:00 am. No worries though as the ship did not make it to Bari until 9:30 am or so, so we had plenty of time enjoying the morning on the deck. We even were provided a free latte and hot chocolate by a bartender that had taken a liking to Erin the night before. Who was I to turn down free hot chocolate just because a guy, that we will probabaly never see again, lusted after my girlfriend!!! We spent the little bit of morning that we had on the boat with Dave and Marile. We also had determined that they were heading in the same direction as we with the same basic itinerary for the next few days. A little synopsis on Dave and Marile - Dave and Marile are from the Boston area, but don't have the normal Boston accent. They have been married almost 3 years and are in the last of a 6 month trip around the world. They had started their travels in the Cooke Islands, been to Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, Africa, Turkey, Greece, and were now heading into Italy to finish off their trip. (Marile had lived in Florence for 5 or so months to study during her college years and had traveled some of Italy then.) They are a very neat couple with whom we enjoyed sharing travel stories and new adventures over the next few days. We also got some great tips for journeys that we have not yet taken and we appreciate those very much. O.K. Back to the journey: We had arrived in Bari and our first order of business was to take the bus to the train station and find out when the next train to Napoli was leaving. First things first we had to locate a ticket office to buy bus tickets. We did not see one anywhere along the port area and there were plenty others looking for the same thing. We determined that we must be able to buy them on the bus, which is not the usual, so we waited. The bus showed up and sure enough you could buy your tickets on the bus. We took the ride to the train station all the while chatting with a New Zealand family that was traveling around Europe for 3 months. We departed at the train station and headed in to check the partenza (departures) board. The next departure was around 2:00 pm and arrived in Napoli around 6:20 pm.. We had about 4 hours to kill while we waited for our train departure so we headed into Bari to look around. We also went looking for breakfast as all we had had was the hot beverage on the boat. On our way out of the train station we met another couple that we had seen on the boat and bus earlier and stopped to talk. We met Jeff and Michele who were on their honeymoon for 6 weeks traveling around Europe. We also found out that they were from Waikiki and had visited the Mai Tai bar quite often while they were looking for engagement rings. The coincidence is that my sister lives in Oahu and works at the Mai Tai Bar in Waikiki. (It sure is a small world sometimes!!!) We chatted for a little while and then off we were to tour Bari. We managed to find breakfast, and then after a long walk around town and back towards the port we found an internet cafe. We checked emails for about a half hour and then headed back towards the train station. Along the walk back we stopped in to a pet shop where we played with 2 very petite Yorkshire Terriers (my favorite) and another dog (of which type I do not recall). From here we found a quick place to have lunch as we realized that our next meal would not be until after 6:00 pm, or later, depending on where our final destination was. |