Post-Rome update. Made it to Croatia.

The trip so far has seemed like a dream with a few nightmares thrown in for balance. It has been a blur of beautiful landscapes, statues, historical buildings, churches, and paintings. Along with those came long and painful hill climbs, fast downhills with great views and the sun suddenly making an appearance, rain, rain, and more rain, missed turns that took us miles out of the way, sleeping in tents at campgrounds,  trying to stay at a bed and breakfast in Grosseto but not being able to connect with the owners so we could check-in, having to admit that finding a McDonald’s saved us from likely not having a place to stay by providing free wi-fi with our sundae purchase, staying at a cheapish but nice resort where Mel could take an actual bath, riding on highways with no shoulder, and some of the sketchiest traffic ever while trying to find our campground in Rome. The longest we stayed in any one city before Rome was about a day and a half. I think I will focus on what’s fresh in my mind for the earlier parts of the trip, while amazing, are losing traction in my again brain. I’m going to again need to rely on photos to try and tell that story.

We got to stay in Rome for five days without the hassle of looking for a different place to stay each day. It took some work getting to/from the tourist sites but it was worth it to have the same place to come back to each night. We were thoroughly impressed with the sites of Rome. One must see them all for themselves to really appreciate the Coliseum, Roman Forum, Trastavere, Pantheon, St. Peters Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum, and the quieter side streets of Rome. All we could have asked for was a little less rain, way less people trying to sell us umbrellas, less pushy tourists, less drivers, and some more gelato.

Dan was with us through all of this but today left on a flight back home from Rome. It was hard to see him go but it’s nice to start the part of our trip that will be more honeymoon-like. Mel and I are sitting on a train to Bari while I write this. Well actually we are sitting on the third of six trains we will be riding today. We first rode our bikes from the Camping Roma campground through the same sketchy traffic to get to the Metro station about 15 minutes away. We knew we probably weren’t allowed to take our bikes on these trains but the alternative would have been several hours of riding in the horrific traffic and pollution to get to a train station on the opposite side of Rome. We carried our bikes down several flights of stairs, then down several escalators, rolled them through the fare gates, then carried them down more stairs. We got on the train without issue and rode the ten or so stops to where we would need to switch trains. We went up another escalator and then got stopped by a couple security guards who told us bikes are only allowed on Sundays. Mel used logic and asked if they could recommend another way for us to go. I only said that the trains seemed empty and we only needed to go four more stops. I think they decided it would be easier to let us go then to explain in English what we should do so they let us up the one last escalator to catch the train. We arrived at the Roma Tiburtina station with one hour to spare before our four-hour train to Pescara. Then we will have a layover for a couple hours before catching a train to Termoli where we will have eight minutes to catch the next train. Fingers crossed on that transfer. Then hopefully we are on our way to Foggia where we will have thirty-three minutes between trains. We will get to Bari at 11:43pm if all goes to plan. We will then have 17 minutes to get to where we are staying or will be charged a 10 Euro penalty if we get there after midnight.


Update: We made it to Bari and were there for a couple days. Guess what. It rained and the campground we tried to go to wasn't yet open for the season. We did find a place to stay though and we enjoyed the city but were ready to get out of Italy. We booked a ferry online to go from Bari to Dubrovnik, Croatia and then decided we would go to the ferry terminal on foot about twelve hours early to make sure we would be able to get on without a problem. Good thing we did because it was confusing. We had someone who wasn't too helpful say we needed to go somewhere two kilometers away and that there was a bus that went there. We went outside trying to make sense of what he said. Really, we have to go two kilometers away to get tickets for the ship sitting 100 yards from us? We got on the first bus we saw and sure enough we were dropped at several closed ticket windows about ten minutes later.  At least we now knew where to go later.


Here is a stream of consciousness to make a long story short: Walked to place we left our stuff, grabbed our bikes and bags, tried to go to a supermarket but nothing was open, rode back to the ferry terminal then rode the 2 kilometers to the ticket counter, waited an hour and a half for the counter to open at 6 or 7pm (we had been told it could be either), met an older couple from Australia who we had a nice conversation with, got our tickets, went and found an open supermarket while dealing with the crazy drivers of Bari, got on the ferry and found a place to camp out (we bought the cheapest tickets to save money so we basically just found the quietest place we could to set up our sleeping pads and sleeping bags), watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall on our laptop, tried to go to sleep but some teenagers decided to stay up all night dancing and singing about 50 feet away, got to Dubrovnik at 7am tired but had a place booked to go take a shower and a short nap (up a steep road, past a car rear-ending another one, up a bunch of stairs, and up another steep road), went to old town Dubrovnik and saw that it was absolutely beautiful, craved Mexican food but you don't find much of that here, drank a beer at the Old Port, went back to where were staying, and saw one of the most beautiful sunsets ever. Now we've moved to a campground for tonight and will be taking a bus to Sarajevo in the morning.


Loving this trip. And especially loving Mel.