J&J's European Adventure

1 June

Paestum to Termoli

This is going to be a long narrative, because it was such a strange day. We got up at 0600, packed up, hiked the 1.5 miles to the train station, and caught the 0830 train for Naples to start our journey north and east. It was a perfect morning and we had the whole area pretty much to ourselves, so we didn't mind the walk. One downside of staying in out of the way places is no mass transit, but it's worth it.

We had a two-hour layover in Naples, so we took a walking tour of the town. What a miserable place! We probably are not giving it a fair chance, having only seen the few blocks in the area around the station, but we saw nothing redeeming there. We're not 100% sure, but we think we were directed to the train station – even though we needed no help – by a mafia-type person, possibly because we were sitting on "his bench" on a street corner eating our lunch. Who knows what sort of business he conducts there. We were already saddling up to leave when he appeared, so we were not in immediate danger of being whacked, but it was very strange anyway.

Our next stop was Benevento, where we would connect with a train for Foggia. I remember the saying about Mussolini that "he made the trains run on time." Well, they need to dig him up to at least oversee that operation again, as we've yet to encounter an on-time Italian train. We pulled into Benevento to find our connection to Foggia NOT listed on the board. We eventually learned that the train was replaced by a bus, possibly because of track repairs. We boarded a 15-passenger bus at the last minute and settled in for the two-hour ride of our lives. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disney World is the best way we can think of to describe the twisting, climbing, diving, bumping, accelerating, braking, and occasionally flying through the air ride over an assortment of back roads as we wove through the countryside to connect to all the little hamlets that the regional train normally serves. The country we drove through was beautiful and we arrived in Foggia right-side-up, so it was all good in the end.

We had about an hour layover in Foggia before traveling to Termoli, our goal for the day. The train to Termoli was another of those little one-car affairs; cute, but noisy, rough, and fairly slow. It brings to mind the Cannonball Express to Hooterville, or maybe Mr. Rogers' trolley. Termoli is a very nice small city on the Adriatic coast. Our choices were: stay here and travel to Venice tomorrow, or catch the midnight train to Venice tonight. As we walked around looking for a hotel, we really liked what we saw of Termoli, so we preferred staying here. The first hotel we checked was a 4-star establishment near the train station. They wanted 82 Euros, but were well situated, so we decided to take it. When we found the room to be pretty hot, with no AC, we gave the clerk back the key and moved on. Our GPS led us several blocks across town to an out-of-business hotel, and we had about decided to take the night train, when a committee of four locals we ran across directed us to the Hotel Giorgione, which advertises itself as two stars, just a few hundred feet from the beach. For 60 Euros, we got a 15x20ft 4th-floor room with a 10x15ft balcony/deck facing the sea, AC, and breakfast included. It's often better to be lucky than smart. We now think we will stay here two days, since we need to find internet access and plan our assault on Venice a little better. This is also the first place in Italy where the locals have been overtly helpful and friendly. The hardware store guy even replaced Janene's missing suitcase screw for no charge.

Daily miles: 6.73

Expenses: 9.10€ (food)

Temples of Hera in the morning sun