PAGE Wednesday 3.1.18 Day trip and walking tour of Matera. A: We were on the road early and had breakfast as the locals do- in the cafe with coffee and pastry (cornetto). Mick's new cough had taken a good firm grip, but there was no way we were going to miss Matera - a major destination in the area, as you will read below. Today's trip was on another of the small local railways - the Ferrovia Appulo Lucane. It even has it's own station building, and has o...

Two days for the price of one in this entry. Quite uneventful as you will see. Between the public holiday and Mick's having contracted a second cold - just as the first was on the way out, a quiet day or two was in order. Despite our best planning, we had to find a place for lunch as the cupboards were bare and Jan 1 of course is a public holiday. We didn't need to walk far till we found Gran Caffe SAICAF which was a very modern pizza restaurant with some prete...

Sunday 31.1217 NYE A: No trains to catch today, so we had a leisurely start to the day, with only midday mass at San Nicola and the walking tour at 4 on the agenda. We walked up through the new town to the old historic part of Bari, stopping for cappuccino on the way "al banco" ie standing. In Rome I had started to ask for coffee with milk instead as I realised that with a cappuccino order I ended up with froth. It seems to be a little different in eac...

A: Bari- day trip to Alberobello and Locorotondo Alberobello had been on our list for some time and today we decided to catch the train to Alberobello, take a look around, then get a second train one more stop to Locorotondo- about 3 hours travelling in total for the day, but worth it. The scenery on the way was an entertainment in itself. Our first destination was all that we had hoped for- a gorgeous little town that today looked even more lovely with the...

Anne: Up and packed before 7am and were lucky that the rain overnight and then predicted for around 8am managed to hold off giving us enough time to walk the ten minutes to Ottaviano metro. While we are organised and our bags compact the rain would have been a bit of a nuisance. The ticket machine at the Metro station refused to accept either of our 10E notes and we didn't have 3E in change so had to line up at the ticket office which was about to open. Fortunat...