Monday 22nd Dec - Leaving Naples it was quite foggy and it really felt very wintery. The country side is hilly with many small farms, lots of freshly ploughed fields, vineyards and olive groves. Quite a few creeks and streams running with water. Getting closer into Bari the landscape begins to flatten out. Bari is a port city and the capital of the Puglia region. The largest church is the Basilica de San Nicola (St Nicholas) built in the 11 century, again quite a plain church for Italian standard but interesting non the least. The Vecchia Bari (old city part) consists of a maze of little quaint winding streets that seem to all interconnected. We were warned to be very careful with our possessions in this part, and don't visit it at night, but we didn't feel unsafe or concerned walking about (but we are also very conscious of our bags anywhere). The front doors to people's house have curtains hanging so locals can have their doors open without people peeking in. While walking these streets we stopped and had a chat to some local kids - well, Rob did, they were about Liam's age and are no different, they have sony play stations, and love their soccer and seemed to all have smart phones! The piazza areas have been turned into car parks for the cities residents because the cars don't fit down the streets.
Walking out at night, the whole town must have been shopping for Christmas, the streets were crowded. The main shopping mall is blocked to cars which is unusual for Italy, but it's every girls shopping dream with Gucci, Amarni, Louis Vuitton, Prada and more all in a row, shame I couldn't convince Rob to catch up on some xmas shopping.
In the main square there was an ice skating rink so Liam had a chance to show off his skating skills again and absolutely loved it. This time Liam convinced Rob to have a go, he did well after going around holding the rail twice he got a little brave and said he was ready to show me his Torvil & Dean act! Not so but he did stay on his feet the whole time. We've had some nice meals in the evening, and the coffee is good in this part of Italy, especially to keep warm, lunches are mostly foccia bread plus a drink that amounts to about €4.00 ($6.00) for all three of us. The temperature has been from 1- 12ºC, sunrise is about 7.15am and sunset around 4.30pm so really short days. We have had a couple of enjoyable days here. Thursday, Christmas eve, we are heading up to Robs relatives to enjoy the festival season. Looking forward to see Rita and Gino.