day 2 Bari.

Bari Castle. Norman. Rebuilt Fredrick II. 2 of the following pix are sideways.

11th C , 13th C details

Ongoing excavation 

Octopus sandwich good, not life-changing 

A detail from the church of San Nicola. 3 wise men.

a reminder. cannot get US texts in Italy

If you're on WhatsApp, I can. Otherwise, if you've texted me something about my photos, i won't see it until 8 August 2025

Bari day 1

What a fascinating city! A port with a rich history and diverse population. Families from...

Central / Eastern Europe 2,047 European Union 1,983 Western Asia 1,948 South / Central Asia 1,732 East Africa 1,486 East Asia 1,343 West Africa 1,000 North Africa 492 South / Central America 368 North America 54 South / Central Africa 22

Georgia 1,664 Albania 1,390 Romania 1,171 Bangladesh 828 China 731 Mauritius 689 Philippines 561 Nigeria 474 Pakistan 353 India 300 Somalia 291

What this means is so much food! African restaurants, kebab shops,  Apuglian italian cuisine, fish and famous octopus sandwiches. And more.  I think you could eat a full month here and not repeat.

Park a block from my B&B

Speck from Lidl for lunch

mystery altar of locks on fence over Bari Centrale, the main train station ah, found out what. A lucchetto d'amore. You swear your love, lock it, snd toss the key onto the tracks below. 

Bari harbor and the Mediterranean beyond 

a theater 

città vecchia, old medieval town with very narrow streets. Sorry, you have to tilt your head. 

travel to Bari

80% of the day was travelling from Pompei to Naples to Bari. The trip went across the nation, one coast to the other, in 5 hours. I rode through a green, hilly landscape. People were talkative and my seat mate friendly, but my accent is Central/northern. So lots of smiles and shrugs. 

light day

I visited a small open air market, ate out, and packed. All travel day tomorrow. I needed a calmer day with only a few miles of walking, and I got it. 

view of piazza from restaurant 

Spent in 1 week:$1050. That's not including the tennis, but it does include 2 hotels for next week. The shoes added to that total. $900 without them, about what I predicted per week. (When I'm in one place for a month, it will be less.)

Pompei . definitely worth it

I got to the hidden entrance at 8:30, was first in line and wandered about til 9:30, then was first through the gate to the Villa of Mysteries. Fantastic. I'm joining the cult of Dionysus. 😉

Nice digs, this villa.

above is wall plaster painted Pompei red. Barely faded

those 3 from the museum. Next a couple of other pix, and i must eat and nap!

that one is like a cafeteria. Thermopolia. Italians still eat standing outside of restaurants.

Herculaneum, trains, Eff Google, farms

Directions here in rural so. Italy are impossible. I had to use GPT to correct Google maps, and ask people often. And then you end up here. What is this? Guess. Go on, guess. It's the bloody Herculaneum train station! Zero signs, a couple of bushes disguising it. It's there. No, really. Duck between the bushes. 🙄

Trains in the boonies are a challenge. No signs at stations, or graffiti over them. At night, it was scary to go one stop too far and have to backtrack . (No announcements, goddess knows, not even in Rome). Today, I got left off not at Ercolano Scavi (excavation) but at Ercolano porto (port). On the mediterraneo. A fishing village. 50 minute walk up a slope, and i was close. 2 hour later, Google having run me around in circle even more, i found it. Meh. Here it is. All the good stuff is in Naples Museum. You can walk through there, but no more exciting at ground level. The IDEA of 79 AD is great. It was a lot of walking again today.

Still, i tried to make lemonade out of 🍋 directions. This wall was interesting. It's my thimble full of lemonade. The Greeks owned the coasts before the Romans. Maybe Etruscans got down this far? Then Romans. Then 79 AD and Vesuvius. Next,  hundreds of years of not very wealthy inhabitants, largely fishing folk. Oppressed occasionally by Naples kings and pirates. Anyway, this wall is that history. 

it is greek stuff (like Attic Greeks) patched with pumice bombs, later bricks that might be Renaissance era from their size, two kinds of concrete, one possibly quite old, as Romans had it. Kinda cool. Maybe not 3 extra hours of walking cool, but you're supposed to embrace travel adventures. And the blisters that come with them.

Came back to Pompei via train. As trying to do it logically failed, I grabbed the wrong train headed vaguely south after screaming "a pompeii? Questo Treno va a Pompei?" Into the open door. Nice ladies decided yes, though hesitantly, i thought couldn't be any worse than the last two times. And i made it back. Asked for "something regional that true Italians would eat" in Italian at a carry out place. Talked with the wife, in Italiano, while he cooked, about Sinner and the  Pope (not kidding. It's huge here.) Got food a porta via (carry out) and back to the hotel to eat it. 

The train da Roma a Napoli went through an agricultural region. Looked to be 20 and 40 acre farms. They were growing maybe 20 rows each of crops. Bigger than a big farm's kichen garden but similar philosophy. Healthier for the soil. And 0 chemicals. Healthier for people.We should learn from them.

Basta. Whipped again.