So we cross the Adriatic from Greece. An interesting experience in terms of the organisation (or lack of) at Igomenitsa harbour. We arrived early for the ferry and being the Brits we are, expected to wait in a neat queue of cars, vans etc before boarding. Oh no you don't, in Greece you drive directly onto the quayside and park up roughly around the berth for your ship (#7) in our case and wait until it arrives...when it does, everyone drives en masse towards the on/off ramp and hoots the horn until someone shouts you on. In the meantime you hope that nobody climbs under your vehical to stow away (Albanians mostly trying to get into Italy and being unceremoniously kicked off trucks etc by Greek security guards). When they do beckon you aboard, you then get conflicting instructions from the sailors in charge of the boarding as they direct you to where you've to park up. Much to Miranda's amusement, this involved me having to do a three point turn on the ramp of the boat and then having to reverse into a space between two trucks.

Still the crossing was luxurious, as we got a cabin upgrade and ended up in a suite at the front of the boat with a big double bed, picture window and snazy curtains ! It was v.nice, although M had to be gagged to prevent her telling the steward who showed us to the cabin that he'd obviously made a mistake as she was sure we'd actually booked a cramped 2 berth in the bilge ! So luxurious in fact that we slept in and missed breakfast. 

Having landed in Italy, it was back to reality and off to find the Gargano Prometory where the plan (if ever there was one), was to meet up with Margaret and Stuart (two friends from Winchester) who are also touring Italy. We'd told them the name of the campsite and not much else and were pleasantly surprised that they found it not 2 hours after we arrived. We were even more pleasantly surprised that they agreed to forsake 5* luxury and camp out with us in the van for a night...I'd even manged to find the most basic site we've stayed on so far, with real turkish toilets and cold showers...but hey what are friends for !

After a night of unbroken sleep (well for me anyway, everyone else was up and down to the loo a lot apparently) we all headed off with Stuart at the wheel of their rental car to find somewhere decent for the next night. We ended up in a lovely wee town called Peschici having picked the "Hotel Tomatoe" near the beach as a likely spot to stay. We all liked the feel of the town pretty much as soon as we arrived, largely due to the fun had listening to Stuart deal with his first serious Italian traffic jam as we drove down the narrow main street, which was blocked by a Czech tourists car. Fortunately they had rooms free at the "Tomatoe" and we booked in before heading off to explore for the afternoon.

We did a nice walk, explored a hillside town and even had time for a swim back at the hotel before the fun really started.

We'd picked a lovely restaurant in town "Fra Stefano" for dinner from the Rough Guide and were all excited (Stuart in particular) at the prospect of "roast kid with small onions" - it's speciality. We even booked the hotels shuttle service to run us up the hill to town to get there. Unfortunately the shuttle bus driver had a different agenda and insisted on taking us to a "much nicer" seafood restaurant he knew.

Before you could say "the kids off", we'd been hustled into this "not so nice" restaurant provided with a litre of red wine a bowl of olives and a menu nobody was that keen on (no roast kid). After a quick conference over a couple of olives, it was decided that we'd neck the red wine and leave Stuart to explain to the large Italian lady that ran the establishment that one of the ladies we were with had just gone into labour (my plan went something like that) and we needed to leave. Hats of to Stuart, he came up with his own plan and just told her straight up that we didn't want to eat there as the rest of us beat a hasty retreat out the door (was he brave or what !).

So next stop was the right restaurant, Fra Stefano !!! What could possibly go wrong... we sat down, got a litre of red wine, some olives and the menu...needless to say "the roast kid and small onions" wasn't on it !!!...so we necked the red wine and made a swift exit...only joking, you can only neck so many litres of red wine.

We stayed and enjoyed the food that was on that night and struck up an instant rapport with a lovely Romanian waitress called Maria who was taken in particular by Stuarts sparkling wit and repartee (aided immensly no doubt by the copious quantites of red wine quaffed thus far). Without a word of lie her opening statement to him was "tonight you will die, I will poison your food" So a good time had by all !

Next day involved a lovely breakfast (lovely looking buns those and the bread rolls aren't bad either) a visit to one of the Garganos lagoons and a hairy drive over the promentory back to the campsite where we bade arreviderchi to S&M as they took off for Sorentto and some sanity.

It was lovely to meet up with people we knew and we can only hope they will have recovered from the experience by the time they get back home.

For us, it's off to the heel of Italy next down to Monopoli, Sante Maria De Leuca and Lecce to see what they have in store !