I awoke this morning with the sudden feeling that we had no ferry to catch, I checked online and found that there was a ferry leaving for Corfu today and, on my premonition we decided to go to Brindisi, find the ticket and see what happened.
We packed our bags, gathered up the dog and followed the superb signage to Brindisi Port. There were huge signs every 200 metres so it was impossible to get lost and the views were, again, fabulous. We arrived at Brindisi Port, a tiny portacabin of a port with tired and bored policemen sunbathing, a day trip boat in the harbour and a few picnickers. I went in and asked about our tickets only to be stared at in complete incomprehension. There are no boats. No boats? No boats. Using my very rudimentary Italian I managed to establish that there were no longer any ferries to Greece from Brindisi available this week but there were some from Bari. Bari is where we came from.
Returning to Bari, which was easy because we knew the way, we started to look for signposts to the port, there were none. On the maps app I found a road with a port so we followed that, still no signs. Suddenly there it was, a sign the size of a postage stamp and a gate, having driven past it and the road being quite wide R decided to do a U turn. Slowly and carefully he started his manoeuvre, as he reached the point of no return a motorbike came screaming past missing us by millimetres. Very wobbly the motorcyclist came to a stop up ahead and we realised it was a police bike. We both swore our best swearwords and waited for the bike to come back. It was a very shocked looking policewoman, she must have been going really fast to have come up like that and she was clearly shocked and started shouting at us in Italian. We apologised profusely, R even removing his sunglasses to prove how genuinely sorry he was, we explained as best we could that we couldn’t find the port and we had got lost and we were trying to get to Greece. With some relief that we would be leaving her country she accepted our apology and explained that U turns were forbidden. She told us that the main entrance to the port was in the opposite direction, after three traffic lights, turn right. Dear god we were still going the wrong way. We went to pull out and look for somewhere to turn around when she told us to make a U turn and follow her! R convinced that we would be booked because she made us do something illegal looked a little rattled (and it takes a lot to rattle him!). We followed her through the first two sets of traffic lights until she decided to chat to someone through a car window and luckily seemed to lose interest in us. After the fourth set of traffic lights there was a massive sign for a car park on the right which was the only right turn on the road. Above the entrance for the car park was an enormous sign saying BARI PORTO, the only sign we’d seen. The port is massive with ferry boats and cruise ships and three kilometres of docks all hidden behind the buildings on the main road.
We entered the port and followed the signs to Greece, ignoring those to Macedonia, Croatia and Albania, past huge ships and queues of lorries and found the check in for Greece. I went in to be told there was a ferry this evening but there was no space on board, I had to wait until 4 o’clock to see if there would be a cancellation. Another delightful day was spent in a car park. At 3.30 I went back into the ticket office and waited, lots more people came to try and get to Greece and were being sent to Ancona, four hours drive back up the coast. At 4 o’clock the lady called me to the desk to say there was no space today and none this week. I explained that our ferry was cancelled from Brindisi and she looked a little more sympathetic, we have a cabin on Friday on a ferry to Igoumensita but it is very very ‘spensive, she told me. It was, but we had no choice, we needed a ticket. I booked it and hoped that it was gold plated taps and a butler, at least Sunny could come in the cabin with us, he would have screamed the place down if he’d been left in a kennel. Hopefully finding a ferry to Corfu from the mainland will be easy!
Armed with our tickets we found another site about 45 minutes from the Port back in the same direction we came from and decided to relax for a few days by the seaside and rejoice in the fact that we hadn’t murdered an Italian policewoman.
We are at Kellermans and we are the youngest people here. They didn’t have any watermelons, I had to make do with a cantaloupe.