2004.09.27 in Rome to Bari
Apparently today is World Tourism Day and the Vatican museums are free for the second day in a row, lucky for us! Yesterday was also free as it was the last Sunday of the month. We got up early and left our bags at Stargate's reception promising to be back by 10:00 to checkout (very unlikely). We walked all the way to the museums in an hour, taking longer than we expected. We got there at 8:30 (15 minutes before opening) and encountered a queue half as long as Sunday's. We chose to wait it out and Le went and grabbed some needed Italian pastries for breakfast. Snaked our way to head straight for the Sistine Chapel (not knowing I was skipping some of Raphael's masterpieces elsewhere in the museums). It was definitely magnificent but not as awe-inspiring as I thought it was going to be. No photography was allowed in the dark chapel packed with ceiling-gazers, but there was always the random camera flash as tourists sneaked a shot in. Stayed for about half an hour and picked up our bags at 11:00 without a problem. We got lost for 30 minutes looking for the supermarket we went to a couple of nights ago - my bad, we took a wrong turn (for the 1st time) LOL. Before leaving Roma Termini, we ate some good pizza by the kilo again for lunch. Boarded our Eurostar Italia train to Bari and had to pay a 20 euros supplement fee to the conductor. It may have been much less if we bought tickets before boarding...
I don't think of mountains when I think of Italy, but after going to Firenze, Roma, and now approaching Bari, Italy is a very mountainous country with beautiful scenery. The port isn't near the train station so we bused it from Bari Centrale making sure to catch the first one. The ferry leaves at 19:00 and we had less than an hour to get there so we wanted to be sure to not miss it! Buying our two public transit tickets somehow came out to 1.50 euro even though one ticket costs 0.74 cents. While on the bus we met a girl, Janelle, with a very similar blue MEC pack as mine except hers had a zippered compartment on the bottom. Jam! That's a feature we wish we had for shoes, laundry, or a sleeping bag! Not knowing what to expect, the Blue Star Ferries ship to Patras was pretty nice. We had deck class tickets meaning we could sleep on the reclining seats on deck level (not outside of course). It was noisy and the structure shook a lot on the level but I explored other decks of the ship and they were more comfortable. Getting an actual bed would have cost at least 90 euros! They showed a movie on board - "Das Boot" Director's Cut - that was over 3 hours long and didn't seem suitable while travelling by boat for over 15 hours. It was a good movie even though some of the dubbing wasn't always audible. It ain't easy sleeping across two reclining captain's chairs but everyone had to adapt to the discomfort and the droning sound of the ship's engines.
I don't think of mountains when I think of Italy, but after going to Firenze, Roma, and now approaching Bari, Italy is a very mountainous country with beautiful scenery. The port isn't near the train station so we bused it from Bari Centrale making sure to catch the first one. The ferry leaves at 19:00 and we had less than an hour to get there so we wanted to be sure to not miss it! Buying our two public transit tickets somehow came out to 1.50 euro even though one ticket costs 0.74 cents. While on the bus we met a girl, Janelle, with a very similar blue MEC pack as mine except hers had a zippered compartment on the bottom. Jam! That's a feature we wish we had for shoes, laundry, or a sleeping bag! Not knowing what to expect, the Blue Star Ferries ship to Patras was pretty nice. We had deck class tickets meaning we could sleep on the reclining seats on deck level (not outside of course). It was noisy and the structure shook a lot on the level but I explored other decks of the ship and they were more comfortable. Getting an actual bed would have cost at least 90 euros! They showed a movie on board - "Das Boot" Director's Cut - that was over 3 hours long and didn't seem suitable while travelling by boat for over 15 hours. It was a good movie even though some of the dubbing wasn't always audible. It ain't easy sleeping across two reclining captain's chairs but everyone had to adapt to the discomfort and the droning sound of the ship's engines.
posted by ET at 17:27
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