Koper

Breakfast cost 5€ extra, but I didn't mind because it was plentiful and filling, with frankfurters and eggs available. Since the train wasn't due until 1023, I watched a bit of TV and checked my email in the lounge. Even so, I had time to kill at the station. As the line approaches the coast it has to lose a lot of altitude in a short distance. So there is an impressive zigzag section where you can see where the train was a few minutes ago higher up.

The area around Koper's combined train and bus station is flat, boring and treeless industrial land outside the old city. It was several hundred metres walk to the Motel Port and I was glad I had my floppy hat against the midday sun. I eventually found it in the upper floors of a port facility building that housed shipping companies, retailers and such. Nearby, container trucks were noisily arriving at and departing from the docks. That explained the name of the motel/hostel. There was a bar in the next block so it could get noisy at night. But the dorms were airy, bright and clean. I had a whole dorm to myself while I was there.

Even by 1830, it was still too warm for my taste. I was back on the Adriatic coast so skies were clear and the sunshine brilliant. It was close to the peak of summer after all. I found the way into the old city more or less by luck and explored all the squares and narrow streets mentioned in the guide. This is the Praetorian Palace in the principal square.

Koper's other name is Capodistria which reveals its Italian origin when teased apart as Capo d'Istria (Head of Istria). It once had a sizable Italian community but most left when the area was given to Yugoslavia in the aftermath of WWII. I daresay many moved across the border to Trieste which was given to Italy. However the Italian influence lingers in the region in the street language, bilingual signs, and fortunately for me, the cuisine. In 2007 Koper celebrated a 50th anniversary.

I found the La Storia restaurant, where I had the eponymous gnocchi with chicken, rugola and only half a cherry tomato! And tomatoes are a mainstay of Italian cuisine. Were they very expensive in Slovenia? But the dish was good. Like being back in Italy. Service was slow because the place was understaffed but I didn't mind because I had a good view of the marina area.

I got a gelato (what else?) for desert on the Leather Maker's street. It was much cooler on the walk back. There wasn't any truck traffic at that hour but lots of merrymakers at the drinking establishment downstairs.

The RAI3 channel was showing Il Commissario Rex. It was an episode I had seen before. Rex got kidnapped (or should we say, dognapped) by the baddie.

Trani and Bari

One benefit of staying in a hotel is the buffet breakfast, when available. I took full advantage of this. With two cups of cappuccino running in my veins, I bounced out of the hotel to wander in other parts of the port before the day got too hot. In the south one has to take more care with broken pavements and even less orderly traffic.

Trani's main monument is the cathedral, dedicated to S. Nicola. Maybe I should have paid him some respect in his house, because he was to cause me trouble later that evening.

Here is the fort of Trani.

Posters in the city publicised that this was Europe Day. On this day in 1950, France's foreign minister, Robert Schuman, proposed the unification of coal and iron production in France and Germany under a single body. This was the precursor of what was to become the European Union.

As I would not get a chance to shower until Croatia, I did so before checking out. I arrived in Bari around 1800 and at this hour the bus platforms outside the train station were teeming with people going every direction. Since I had until 2000 to board the ferry, I went looking for Internet access as I didn't know what how widespread it would be in Croatia. I found it in a laundromat. Nice combination: check your email while your clothes tumble. They told me that bus 20, the one that goes to the ferry terminus, went past a couple of streets away. But after a bit of walking I wasn't so sure anymore, so I retraced my steps to the bus station.

At the enquiry counter, the clerk, in reply to my question, said slowly to make sure I understood: 20 barrato, meaning 20/, the route going in the opposite direction of 20. In Europe, the bar or slash is a mark that commonly denotes the negation of something. For example, at the town limit of Anacapri, you will see a road sign with Anacapri and a bar running across it.

The 1925 bus didn't appear. Finally the 2005 bus turned up but the driver chatted with colleagues for 10 minutes before setting off. As the bus reached the middle of town, we hit a huge traffic jam. It was the last day of the Festival of S. Nicola. Yes, the same one called Santa Claus elsewhere. And Bari is his hometown. The bus diverted left and right to avoid blocked-off streets. Even the Italian backpackers were confused. At one stop, a whole crowd of celebrants got on. Like me they had no idea where they would get off, they were just trying to get closer to the celebrations any way they could. Luckily the bus driver knew we backpackers were going to the ferry and told us that he would announce when to get off.

All that delay had eaten into my safety margin and I was so flustered that as soon as we reached the port, I walked towards the ferry, only to be stopped at the loading ramp by officials. No, no, you have to go back, they said. Ma dov'e? I cried in frustration. They pointed me to the immigration building. Ah, stupid me, if I had been thinking I would have realised that there would be some formalities. So after walking back and getting my passport stamped, I boarded a shuttle bus which took me to where I had been 15 minutes ago, but this time in the right queue. All that exertion on a humid evening had soaked me in sweat. Anyway I was safe now, it was 2130 and there was half an hour to spare. In fact the ferry departed 30 minutes late; perhaps some passengers had been delayed by the traffic.

But we did get to see fireworks over the city at the conclusion of the S. Nicola holiday, so the saint did give us a good send-off in the end.

Up on the deck, under garish fluorescent lights, passengers were cooling off in the breeze and refreshing themselves with amber fluids.

My cabin is deep in the bowels of the ship. I have the whole 2 bunk cabin to myself. The low hum of the engines pervades the whole space. Time to use the ear plugs. It was soothing in a way, because it drowned out any surprising noises, and I slept well on the crossing.

Trani

The train compartment was warm and humid when I entered as it had been a hot day in Bologna. A fellow passenger opened the window a crack to let cool air in and the temperature dropped agreeably over the night. I awoke around 0430, and did my ablutions before anyone else then watched the scenery slide past as the day dawned. The Apuglian landscape was visibly different from Emilia Romagna's. Where the vegetation had been pastel greens, they were now saturated colours. They appeared spikier and more robust. The land was harder, and walls of stone formed boundaries. The light was brighter and harsher. Occasionally we passed prosperous housing estates, and billboards like Ikea's showed that some people at least, were plugged into the consumer society.

Around 0630 we arrived at Bari. I had a coffee in the station bar then rested in the waiting room, listening to the Powaqaatsi soundtrack, until it was time to find the ferry agent office. The manager, who was the first arrival, let me in to await the clerk handling the Croazia bookings. I wondered what business was like years ago when the Balkan wars were raging, and cross-Adriatic services were suspended. I suppose there were still the services with Greece.

Ticket secured, I caught the train back to Trani, nominally 45 minutes north by train. Only it was 55 minutes because it was the milk run. The hotel had received my Internet reservation and I had a long-overdue shower and nap.

Trani is a smaller and more picturesque place than Bari, which is a working city and port, at one end of the Greece-Italy route. Visitors usually just pass through to points west and north. Trani attracts pleasure craft and holiday-makers.

For lunch I chose an alfresco restaurant offering a fish menu. Looking at people at the other tables it seemed that the chef was giving each customer a slightly different variation for the primo piatto. I got pasta shells and shellfish. When the bill was settled, they were 2€ short of change so they knocked that amount off the bill. Just like that.

In the evening, after a siesta, I joined the populace in the evening passeggiata, exploring the port fortifications. I got noticed more here than up north I think because foreign visitors are rarer.

I took this picture by propping my camera against the wall of a B&B place in the port. The owner had a look at what I had captured and approved. We then got into a conversation, the usual where are you from, where are you going and so forth. Why didn't you stay at my place, he asked, as I was leaving. Perhaps next time, I said, laughing.

At the gelateria a couple insisted when it was my turn. Polite people here.

It's my first hotel room since the beginning of the journey and it came with a TV, of course. After midnight, a public station put on a, um, saucy movie from the US, dubbed. I had read about this sort of programming and now I was witnessing it. It was bizarre in that it seemed to be a mashup of two movies and the storyline made absolutely no sense as a result. Not that these movies have much of a storyline to start with. The other fascinating thing was that the commercial breaks advertised mundane things like household goods. Maybe Italian couples need all the encouragement they can get to do something about the plummeting birth rate, close to the lowest in the West. If so I don't think it helps. The reasons are not hard to discover and have to do with women being in the workforce, housework, and willingness or not of the partners to share chores.