Goodbye, Bari

We had a nice last few days in Bari with my sister and her husband. Our days were kind of on repeat, and we were pretty busy, so few posts. I bet you are a little relieved 🙂

We took them to Lecce one day and on the following, they ventured off to Monopoli and Polignano a Mare on their own while we buttoned up our VRBO.

We met up at the train station at 6:30 am for a last cappucinno and pastry (warm!) before we parted ways. We are on our way to Rome to pick up Jim and Nancy – they are taking the train to Vico Equense. I didn’t realize when the tickets were booked for Lisa and Ty that they only had a 10-minute layover in Naples AND had to change stations, so they missed their train! It was pretty stressful for them, but they eventually landed on the right train. Our new hosts are super helpful, they even picked them up from the train station!

Meanwhile, we rented our car – met up with the Cearley’s and headed out. We took the ring road out of Rome; it was bumper to bumper for about 15 minutes, then it eased up. We stopped at a travel plaza and got some lunch as everyone was pretty hungry.

We all arrived safe and sound – after a narrow, winding road. They upgraded our car so it is a little larger than the one we chose, also brand spanking new – with only 236 km on it! So that really added to the stress level.

Having never been, I didn’t realize that we basically are in a suburb of Naples. It was highly recommended to have a vehicle. But, having a vehicle adds a layer to the difficulty. There is absolutely nowhere to park! We needed to go to the store, so Jim dropped us off and drove around the block for 15 minutes while folks shopped.

We ended up buying some pizza for dinner. It was a new experience – you buy it by the meter. They said 1 meter would feed 5 adults. We went with the meter – and an individual one. It was delivered by scooter, hot and fresh and in two very large boxes and one usual-size pizza box. That was A LOT of pizza, so we had pizza for dinner and breakfast!

Our first day with the six of us was gone in a blink. We all hit the hay. We are taking a tour of the Amalfi Coast tomorrow, we hired a driver.

paleremo presto