September 4, 2024
It's an early start on a local bus from home to Vancouver International Airport, where we'll board a Porter Airlines flight to Toronto, to connect with an Air Transat flight to Gatwick Airport near London, England.
Our first surprise of the trip happens early too. We decided to grab a sandwich each once we got through security, for lunch on the way to Toronto. 2 ham & cheese, and an egg salad sandwich, pre-made, in cardboard boxes.
That'll be $39 please. $39! Well, at least they were fresh.
Thursday, September 5, 2024
Our overnight flight to Gatwick was uneventful and we managed to get some sleep, and feeling energized as we board a shuttle train from the North Terminal at Gatwick to the South Terminal.
We have a long wait of 8 hours for our British Air flight to Bari, in the Puglia region of Italy, and we find Gatwick airport to be very busy, crowded, with very little available seating. Gatwick encloses its departure areas with glass so only those with boarding passes may enter, unlike most other airports where anyone can sit in any departure gate seating. Most gates weren't being used so there were plenty of empty seats but not accessible, forcing everyone into the shopping areas for seating (now maybe that's the plan, get us to spend more).
It does make for quicker boarding since boarding passes have already been checked, but the trade-off with being unable to use available seating is not a passenger-friendly policy. We'll avoid Gatwick in the future if we can.
It's a late evening arrival in Bari, and a bus ride into town to get to our hotel for the night, Hotel Excelsior. We had stayed there on our last trip in 2022, and found it to have a luxury feel at less-than-luxury prices, and with an excellent breakfast.
But first, it's a late night dinner, Cory's first taste of genuine Italian pizza, at a restaurant close to the Hotel.
By the time we got back to our hotel room, we'd been travelling for over 30 hours, so it was a welcomed good night's sleep.
Friday, September 6, 2024
We had a rental car booked for 3pm so we had a few hours to walk around Bari. After enjoying the Excelsior's extensive breakfast, we left our luggage with the front office and set out to explore Bari, a port city on the Adriatic Sea.
Bari's main shopping street is modern, vibrant, and busy with well-known luxury brands among the many shops.
It's a warm sun in the blue Puglian skies as we wander the car-less streets...
Arco Basso is famous for the women who live there who make orecchiette pasta by hand out on the street. Their name comes from their shape, like small ears...orecchiette...
And it's big business, at least on a nice day...
Sales are made quickly....
As we left Arco Basso, we had a look at Castello Svevo di Bari, built in the 1100s, destroyed in 1156 by King William I of Sicily (Italy has such a complicated history due to regular invasions from so many directions), then rebuilt in 1233 by Frederik II, he too of Sicily. Later, it was given to the Queen of Poland who was also the Duchess of Bari until her death in 1557, at which time the castle became a prison and barracks. It is now used mostly for art and cultural exhibitions.
An interesting thing about these old castles is the large arched doorways, to allow visitors on horseback to enter....
And with an extra large door knocker mounted higher than the regular knocker so the visitor had no need to dismount, they thought of everything in those days....
We continued our exploration of Bari Vecchia (Old Bari), walking by the Basilica Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, originally built on this site in the 5th-6th centuries but was demolished by King William the Wicked (how wicked must have been to get that name????) when he destroyed the entire city (oh, that wicked....).
It was rebuilt and has undergone multiple renovations ever since.
and then the Basilica Pontificia San Nicola. Bari is one of the few cities in Italy with both a Basilica and a Cattedrale and with two patron saints - St Nicholas and St Sabine. The bells of San Nicola ring out as we walk by, the first of many churches to greet us that way in Italy over the next couple of weeks. Watch your volume....
The inside is dark, but with a glowing golden ceiling...
Continuing our walk, we notice so many unique doors to people's homes, mostly old with many with interesting details...but then a modern one, with a brand new looking knocker...
a quaint old mailbox for Beatrice & Luigi.....
Time to return to the Hotel Excelsior near the Bari Centrale train station, to retrieve our luggage, and then to the nearby Avis location. Bari Centrale is large, with 16 platforms, and situated in a large piazza with an impressive fountain....
We discover that the Avis office is closed between 1pm and 3pm - not unusual in this less-touristy part of Italy to find many businesses closed in early afternoon - so we sit in a nearby small piazzetta before picking up our rented Lancia Ypsilon...
But not without a hitch....we had prepaid for the rental with a Montreal-based broker that we'd had good experiences before, Europauto.ca....and had paid for an extra two hours when returning it a week later. But Avis told us if we returned it two hours later, it would cost more.
I figured it would be no problem getting a refund from europauto.ca, but at first they flat-out refused. Eventually they relented and provided the refund after our return home 3 weeks later. Probably won't book through them ever again, lesson learned.
So off we went in our Ypsilon, it only had about 6000 kms on it, a nice small car for Italy's narrow roads (we always avoid highways), but with plenty of space for the 3 of us and our luggage.
Our first stop was the Bari War Cemetery, just outside of town. Lest we forget.
This is a Commonwealth war Cemetery, with heroes from the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand, and of course Canada...
It may be a relatively small war cemetery compared to some, but there is still dozens young maple leaf heroes here...
"THEIR NAMES LIVETH FOR EVERMORE"...
We then drove on to Matera, in the Basilicata region, made famous by the opening chase scene in the latest James Bond film (though some sequences took place in nearby Gravina), and which we'd visited in 2022 but wanted to see it again.
It's about an hour's drive and as usual, we avoid highways and take back roads as much as possible...
Which often brings some pleasant surprises, and something not often seen back home, a herd of sheep running along a rather busy road & roundabout (and there are plenty of those in Italy)...
When we were in Matera in 2022, we parked in a lot next to the Matera train station, so we headed there only to discover it was closed due to construction. But we find public pay parking at a nearby Polizia station, should be safe enough!
Then take a local bus into the Sassi area of Matera, and our first glimpse of this remarkable city...
to once again enjoy this amazing view from our room, we even stayed in the same room again...Matera is a UNESCO World Heritage site, built right into hillside rock and the Chiesa Rupestre di Santa Maria di Idris is a spectacular example of that, built in the 1300s, it is directly in front of the door to our room...
So do you two like the view?
I think they do.
Right up until the 1950s, people lived in caves in this hillside, in brutal conditions. Now it has been transformed into homes, hotels, and restaurants and certainly since Bond's Aston Martin chased around Matera, a major tourist destination.
Some hotels are built into those caves, like the Caveoso Hotel...
where they have done a great job at even making the light fixtures look like part of the rock....
and sometimes it's a tight fit!
We enjoyed a dinner at Ristorante Morgan nearby, pizza and pasta of course...
and of course a gelato at I Vizi degli Angeli (The Vices of Angels)...not unusual to see a lineup here....
Then on the walk back to our room, we find this....a public water fountain, very common throughout Italy, with a bucket under it with Sestriere written on it. Cory will ski (without the cast!) for Canada in Sestriere, Italy, near Turin, next March. A good luck omen perhaps, for our next trip to Italy...
We enjoy more of Matera at night, really a unique and special place that we truly enjoyed...especially after dark...
A final look at the Chiesa Rupestre before ending our day, a long but very enjoyable day....
We spent another full day in Matera on September 7, before heading to the Salento region of Puglia on September 8. Our next update will cover those two days. Hope you have enjoyed our trip so far.
