Brindisi

We woke up early this first day of August to see if we could make it to Brindisi by 8 a.m. Although the country was suddenly flat, we made a wrong turn and had to wait awfully long for a train to pass - watching dozens of pedestrians ducking under the barrier-poles. Anyhow, there was no ferry sailing that morning, so we went for a breakfast consisting of a long loaf of bread filled with meat, cheese and fish.
I also bought two return tickets to Pyraeus at $ 52.50 at one of the many ferry offices available. We looked around in vain for a laundry and a parking garage, finally deciding to leave the car locked in a shady lane with a bed for Rose's Willy. We then went to a restaurant near the harbor, where we ate spaghetti and enjoyed the sky, the Latin sails and the many foreign tourists.

Around 7 p.m. we embarked on the "Angelica" which departed at 19:30. Most tourists were German and French, and I was curious about their experiences. Ceterum censeo I firmly determined to return to Brindisi one day to investigate its many historic links! Rose and I put our sleeping bags underneath a life-boat and admired the moon and the quiet blue-silver water of the Strait of Otranto, between the Adriatic and the Ionian Seas. BLO fecit 20030325/6 COMMENTS ? next page

Eastern Mediterranean (please click to enlarge)

(NOTE: trying to find out which sea we crossed, I found that the boundary used to be the shortest distance between Italy and Albania; according to the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) of UNEP, Albania borders Adriatic as well as Ionian Seas) More marine-related notes: Ionian Sea has Oceanic Crust; westward subduction of Adriatic Plate underneath Italy; c.q. Italy overrides Adriatic Plate Matera moves towards NNE at 4.5 mm/yr, long-term uplift upto 0.5 mm/yr (numerous uplifted paleoshorelines and marine terraced deposits)