Our transportation, accommodation, food and entertainment cost so far
Oct 03 ~ Day #146
| Budget to date
| Spent today
| Total to date
| Daily average
|
Total
| $14600
| $85.81
| $12317.40
| $84.37
|
Miles by Road
| Miles by Sea
| Miles by Air
| Miles by Train
| Total Miles
|
14976+103=15079
| 4515.8
| 5966
| 119
| 25679.8
|
Current Location: Sammichelle, Italy
Today’s Total Expenses: $85.81
Accommodation: $45.65
Food: $40.16
Consisting of:
Pizza: $20.08 (€15.00)
Dinner: $20.08 (€15.00)
Miles Traveled Today:
Road Miles: 103 (Naples to Sammichelle)
The Greek Ruins of Paestum
Today we visited the Greek ruins (that’s right – Greek ruins in Italy) of Paestum.
There are many impressively preserved building and temples here. This, too, is another site we’d like to visit again when we are not so rushed for time.
You see, today we need to drive from the West coast of Italy all the way over to the East coast so we can pick up the cruise ship in Bari tomorrow for our six-day Greek island cruise.
We will be staying in Sammichelle this evening, just south of Bari.
The time were were able to spend in Paestum, though, was lovely.
The weather was perfect – sunny and warm. There were also many hot air balloons that were obviously allowing tourists to view the Paestum ruins from the air. Perhaps, when we return some day, we’l look into doing that.
The whole area seemed to be a place that people came for a day’s outing. And, this being Sunday, there were plenty of families out enjoying the day. There were also lots of tourist shops and restaurants.
We met back up with our traveling companions around noon and headed off to a little seaside community for lunch.
Amalfi Coast
While we had the chance, we headed over a large, sandy beach and stuck our toes in the waters of the Mediterranean on Italy’s famous Amalfi Coast.
Italian Pizza
In a little seaside café that T had found while we were exploring Paestum (he didn’t want to visit the ruins) we settled in four lunch.
It just seems natural to order pizza in Italy but, unfortunately, it was a mistake.
Our rather expensive personal pizzas were more than disappointing, they were terrible.
We both love pizza and when we’re home Friday nights are often homemade pizza nights. We like a crispy crust, a tangy sauce and lots of toppings.
These pizzas failed on all counts. The crust was soggy, the sauce was nondescript and the toppings were almost nonexistent. Really. Geoff’s pizza had a couple of pieces of ham on it and three whole olives with the pits still in them?
Italians may have invented pizza, but it was obviously perfected in North America.
The Drive from Naples to Bari
After lunch we started the more than 100 mile drive from the West coast of Italy to the East coast of Italy.
I’d like to tell you all about it but I slept most of the way. I’m hoping that Geoff will add something here when he can.
Sammichelle, Italy
Once again our hotel was clean but basic. And, this one did not have any cooking facilities.
After checking in our traveling companions decided they’d like to see where they had to return the rental card and where we needed to go to board the cruise ship.
Drive Into Bari
So, we all piled into the car and headed for Bari.
After finding the train station, which is where T was told he needed to return the rental car, we then found the docks where we would catch the ship.
Drive Along the Coast
That being accomplished, we started what we though would be a nice drive along the coast while heading back to the hotel.
Unfortunately, the road didn’t give us much of a view of the coast.
Dinner Time
It was decided that we would look for a place to have dinner before we returned to the hotel.
After heading back out to the highway we tried stopping at a couple of exits to look for a restaurant.
One exit didn’t seem to have much at all.
The next exit too us into a town where there was some type of festival happening. This made the traffic kind of chaotic (and that’s saying something in Italy!) so we moved on.
Back in Sammichelle
We ended up back in Sammichelle and found a lovely restaurant just steps away from out hotel.
We both enjoyed our dinners. I had steak in a brandy sauce and Geoff had swordfish.
