Naples, Bari

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45. Naples, Bari

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The one big sight to see this morning was the National Archaeological Museum. This holds all the good stuff which was taken out of Pompeii when it was excavated — Roman statues, frescos, beautiful tiles. When you enter, be sure to ask about an entrance time for the Secret Room. This is where they keep all the Roman porn! Apparently it was only recently opened, for fear of damaging the morality of the public. The art within leans heavily toward the phallic, as you might imagine. A lot of great Roman sculpture is housed within the museum, many of the works being copies of earlier Greek originals.

Near the museum, I had one last excellent Neapolitan pizza on the sidewalk at La Tana dell' Arte. I got there right at the opening time of 12:00, and had the place to myself for a while. Then I walked south past the statue of Dante in the piazza named after him, and to the edge of the Spanish Quarter. From there, I turned northeast and walked past some lovely churches, stopping for the local dessert sfogliatella at Gambrinus Café. This is excellent, but even after you pay and take a number, you need to be fairly aggressive in ordering or they'll pass you by. I had lost several pounds the first few weeks of the trip — so busy sightseeing that I didn't stop to eat all that often — but today I was definitely getting heavier.

I picked up my bag from the hotel and headed for the train station. Here I had a close call, but I was lucky. I planned to take a train for the short ride to Caserta at 14:11, but noticed that I was in time for one a few minutes earlier, so I hopped on. Then the train seemed to shut down — all the noise stopped. It didn't come back on. That couldn't be good. So I went back to the original train. Oddly, it was the only one making any noise. Then I noticed, the electricity was out — but this train was the one train running on diesel! So it left right on time, and as far as I could see it was the only train moving for quite some time. I worried that perhaps they wouldn't be able to get the switching right, but apparently that wasn't a problem. If I had missed this train, it would have meant an extra 24 hours before I could have gotten to Greece.

After a fairly long wait in Caserta (given the unreliability of Italian trains, I planned a long connection), I switched to the Eurostar which was on its way east out of Rome. This part of the ride was actually one of the most beautiful train rides I had done. There are quite large, high, round mountains rising above pretty little villages. Sometimes the villages are built spectacularly onto the tops of hills. Further on, the hills become smaller and are covered with lovely rolling farmland. It was about a four hour trip from Naples. As we approached the Adriatic, the scenery became considerably less beautiful — flat and foggy (there is even a town called Foggia; I wonder if they get frequent fog from the sea much as San Francisco does). I arrived around 18:30 in Bari, which was not much of an improvement — sprawling, industrial, and dull as far as I could see. Had I had another day, I would have continued on south to Lecce, which is supposed to have exceptionally beautiful architecture, and then come back to Bari for the ferry to Greece (the Brindisi port nearer to Lecce does not run ferries this late in the season).

There was quite a strong wind blowing in off the sea in Bari. My ferry was leaving at 20:00. For a bed in a room of four, it was €60 with the rail pass discount. The boats seem to be quite empty at this time of year; I'm surprised they still run them every day and/or don't use smaller ones. So I was promised a room to myself! When I got onboard, however, there were two Polish guys already in my room. But I was able to get a different one from the reception desk — I think there were quite a few empty ones. Compared to the night train, it's luxurious — the rooms are much larger, and they even have showers! And the boat actually looks like a big cruise ship! There's a swimming pool on deck (but it stayed closed, a bit too chilly I think), lots of bars, restaurants, and a shop inside.

After dinner, I saw a very fit young guy in tight spandex shorts heading towards the swimming pool — I think he meant to swim even in the freezing wind, but it was roped off. He had bike shoes, so I asked him if he was planning to ride round the ship. Turns out he had been biking all the way down the Mediterranean from France, and was now crossing over to ride for another month in Greece. He had planned to ride down to Brindisi (good thing he didn't, no ships there now), but he stopped early because this part of the east coast of Italy was so dull and rather unpleasant. He was a French Canadian student (I admit it's a small sample size, but I'm quite convinced now that these must be the most beautiful people on the planet — it's certainly past time I visited Montreal). We walked up to the front of the ship to do the silly Titanic thing, leaning over the edge. It is a pretty romantic place to be, the deck of this huge ship with the stars overhead and the lights of Italy in the distance. I was somewhat envious hearing the story of his vacation — but I had done a big bike trip in the Himalayas last year, and on this trip there were just too many things to see, so I had to stick with the trains for efficiency. He was definitely flying by the seat of his pants — I wonder how his time in Greece will go. An avid cyclist who was working onboard the ship told us that it isn't really a very pleasant place to bike. My new friend was sleeping on the deck, so of course I offered him a spot in my room (which was almost too large for one — felt a bit empty), but in this it was quite difficult not to sound over-eager (and I don't think I succeeded, alas...).

Jonathan's Travel Blog :: Europe

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45. Naples, Bari

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