Day 50, 51, 52… 28 – 30th May. Final day in Split, leaving for Ancona Italy on overnight ferry & Bologna Italy

 Day 50, 28th of May. Half day tour in Split

We were up very early this morning as we have a half day tour out on the water – doing a 3 Island tour with snorkelling. Went over to the cafe the accommodation uses for breakfast and had a quick bite and then down to the waterfront by 9 am. They weren’t sure if they were going to have enough people, but there were in the end and we were on a kind of open speed boat that took us out to 3 different islands. A funny thing – when we left the harbour there was the Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas ship that we had disembarked from in Rome! 

The first island had a really cool set up with a bar and loungers, looking out over a pebbly beach. Was really nice so we had an aperol, also a beer for Graeme. Very expensive at €19 in total, but when in Rome…. Next we went to another little port where the dropped us off for an hour to walk around. Quite pretty and lots of summer homes being built. Lastly, we went to a shipwreck but in reality it was just a yacht that had sunk! So wasn’t quite as exciting as it had sounded. Still nice to do although they only gave you a mask and had no snorkels so it was a bit of look down, go out for air, look down etc! 

We got back to the mainland about 2:00 pm, then had until 6 pm to muck around until the boarding for the overnight ferry from Split to Ancona in Italy. Sat around under a tree for awhile, then went to the restaurant we had been to the other night for dinner and got a couple of small sides and a couple of drinks. We are doing well with the alcohol today! Although feel completely sober, so I am thinking that the aperol is not very strong when mixed with lemonade. We went back up to the room where the guy buzzed us in from his home, as they aren’t on site at the accommodation and we made the 80 steps down with two suitcases, a big duffle bag, two backpacks and a day bag – went slowly, thats for sure. Then walked our way down to the ferry terminal which was just under 1km away, as it was the furtherest down the shipping lane, given that the ferry is huge and can’t come in quite so close. All the pavement is paving stones so you have to go slow with suitcases.

Got our ticket for the ferry, and we are told to sit and wait, so we did that – there were a big crowd of very short, older Italians that came in. I got talking to one of the ladies, and she said they were Australian and Italian-living friends on a pilgrimage with their priest. They were very nice to talk to, although we are very good at getting under your arms and jumping in front of the large queue, which they did the entire time we were on the ferry as well! But what can you do but talk to them as they were very nice?!😅 .

Boarding after quite a wait – and then the chaos again! It was not very well managed, and it was a bit of a free for all until it got to getting up to the passenger part of the ferry. Probably over 1000 people and we all had to go up in one tiny little lift that fitted 3 people – I jest you not! You had to just go with it as the little Italians were jumping in front of people again – even the priest was probably doing it. Ha ha.

Got upstairs later on and queued up to get our room card – had to laugh… The cabin was the width of our arms, a bottom and a top bunk, and the bedding was hard and crunchy! The blanket was so bad I took mine off and put it in the cupboard space, and slept after under my sarong! We had to laugh at the bathroom – were glad that we had one for sure, but the shower was over the toilet and at a little tiny corner, so you had to hold the shower curtain and try and wash yourself. We were all salty from swimming on the three island cruise, but I decided to wait because the shower wasn’t too appealing. We opened our bags one at a time just to get out what we needed for the next day and then looked at the air vent – you couldn’t control anything with the air, and it was very still in the room – then Graeme finds a little lever in the roof that you could swing it around to open the vent more. 

I’m lying on the top bunk so he does that and the next minute, thick dust and rust shower all over my bed and throughout the room – I even had it in my mouth! Obviously haven’t had not been opened for a very long time, and absolutely everything in our room was covered with grit 😩😩😩. In the end, we had to laugh and just try and brush it off our beds. At least we had some more air even though it was roaring like a wind tunnel!

Our ticket had a buffet meal included so we went when they called out about it on the loudspeaker. The cafe had big chains and a padlock on the doors??? Not sure what that was about but anyway we got in and managed okay given that they didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Italian. The food looked okay actually, and there was an awful lot more than you could eat, but it was nearly all cold so we had a little bit and then a drink and back to our room. Into bed as it’s been a long day. 

My spider bites seem to be getting better as they are not raised any more and not so angry looking thank goodness.

Day 51, 29th May Ancona to Bologna

we woke up this morning early as they were announcing we were approaching Ancona Italy at 6 am, although it turned out it was after 7am before we actually got there. Had showers in interesting positions! Trying to hold the shower curtain off your body in the corner of the toilet ha ha. We decided to skip breakfast and listened out for where to go. The announcements were to go to a different deck, but you couldn’t get the lift with your luggage as it was the tiny one and was locked, so I went down to the guy who was making the announcements and he said just go anywhere, then kept making announcements to go to that one  deck again??!! It was actually quite funny. 

So we just waited around and met up with a guy we had met yesterday who is in a wheelchair. He had come with us yesterday in the lift – it was pretty tight, but we said we could fit him in and we did! He said he always gets preference and was really funny – he was from the Netherlands and had headlights on the bottom of his chair! We rode down with him to the required deck 5, then everyone queued to go in the tiny lift again – the hobbity Italians getting under arms and around in front yet again – they are very resourceful!!

Anyway, we did get off in the end after standing around talking to some Australian girls, Walked off the ship with our cases and asked a young staff guy the direction to the bus that would get us to the train station. He told us to go right – apparently that was incorrect as we had to go left we were later told! and then walk into town and up the hill and around the corner at across the road, and there was a bus! 

You can gather it wasn’t that easy, but we worked it out. Got the bus – didn’t have the right money, so I only paid for one ticket in the machine, but no one said anything. You could only use coins and some people just got on and didn’t pay so we thought cest la vie! 

In the train station, we bought tickets – it was good as the man spoke pretty good English and had a microphone, which made it easier to hear him through the perspex. Everywhere you go they have the shields that are left over from Covid and when you add a language challenge to it, it can be hard to hear. 

We worked out the Platform to go to – there were a couple of seats  here and there free while we waited. I saw a lady with a dog so of course I went to sit next to her. Her name was Sylvia and her dogs name was Emma. She spoke pretty good English – enough so that we could communicate. We ended up sitting together on the train with Emma at our feet – you can take dogs anywhere, and if they are not in a crate, you just pay half the human rate for them to sit on the floor or on a seat! We talked all the way to Bologna about 2 1/2 hrs– what a lovely person she is. She had lost her father to cancer, then her partner to long covid, and now her mother is dying of cancer as well and still she keeps going. She is quite an inspiration.

I was showing her photos of Goober the dog I had fostered, and her eyes filled up with tears, and she started crying as she is such an animal lover. She gave me a lot of good tips for travel, which were really helpful to us – I wish I had actually got her Facebook contact, you are just meant to meet some people in life aren’t you? I told her to make sure she looked after herself as she goes through the next stage is with her mother and wished her well.

We got off the train, and had to find another bus, – maps.me, which is the off-line version map is still really helpful, but we were having a lot of trouble finding bus number 32 which the information lady told me we needed. We walked around and around and saw every bus number except that one so I went up and asked the driver and we eventually found where we were meant to go to. The driver on this bus didn’t seem interested in asking us to pay, even when I went up twice to check where we were meant to get off! So a nice free ride ha ha. We got off and walked our cases about another 700 m and found our hotel so that was good – quite the adventure in the last 24 hours! We are staying at the Aemilia hotel in Bologna – decided to stay just outside of the walls with this trip, and the hotel and staff are superb.

We  went out after we have got settled in room 510 - 5 th floor with an old town view and walked through to the old town which is about 20 minutes away. It is amazing the porticoes that are absolutely everywhere here – they are so stunning and keep the sun off at the same time. This is a university town, so many students everywhere, mixed with beautifully dressed, high end Italians. We stopped and got a tiny little bun with ham in it and a cold drink, served by a extremely rude ??woman who I thought was a man, then wandered on and saw the two towers at the start of the old town. Amazing as one is leaning over so far, I don’t know how it has not toppled over. We just walked and walked and walked! We found a street which had like a walkway of stars with all the blues famous people on it. Then we stopped and had a drink then back to the hotel. We weren’t up to going back in for dinner into town, so I ordered Uber eats.

Price check – 2 double whopper, meals with chips and drinks was almost $60! We took it up though onto the rooftop garden and sat in a beautiful spot on top of the hotel and had our meal and looked over the city as the sun went down. Really loving this city, even though the people have not been very friendly. It has a lovely feel.

There was a bomb left by terrorists in 1980, which blew up the train station and killed 80 people so I think there has always been a police presence since

Day 52, 30th May

We got up this morning and decided to take 10 kg of our extra gear we are not using now that the cruises are over- suits and high heels etc, to the post office and post them back home. This will really free us up as at the moment we have an extra duffle bag which is soft and one more thing to carry when we already have two suitcases. 

We are usually pretty minimalist, but because we have done so many different things we have needed quite a few different types of clothing. I was over trying to juggle all the bags so have talked Graeme into posting them home. We went to the post shop yesterday and the first lady spoke enough english to understand – she said it would be about €110 to post 10 kg back, so we bought a box and took it back with us. 

She said we had to go to a different post office to post it, as there was a form we needed and they didn’t have it there – was weird considering they were the big main post office. And boy, those buildings are so hot inside as they don’t have air conditioning and you have to take a ticket to speak to them and wait in line. Don’t know how they work in it all the time!

So we walked the 2km back into town today – luckily when we had bought a cheeky bottle of jagermeister yesterday for €13, we had bought a big carry bag with handles and the box to post just fitted in it. Was pretty heavy and it kept banging my knuckles the whole way as we were carrying one side handle each, so glad to be rid of it. I didnt want Graeme carrying 10 kg in his arms that far. We got to the new post office we have been directed to, took a ticket and I had the information from yesterday on google translate, ready. 

We got a very huffy lady who loudly told us that we couldn’t get it done there and we were have to go to a 3rd post office because it was too late?? I explained we were told we had to get the form from this post office and after sometime she must’ve decided that she could do it, and it wasn’t too late! Was clearly because it was a bit of work to do and she didn’t want to do it! 

But then she started talking about visiting Australia 30 years ago and softened up a bit. We did all the paperwork which was a heck of a lot or she huffed and puffed and was grumpy because she had to carry the box around to her side of the counter to weight it.  I had asked at our hotel if they had some scales and they did have ones like we used to weigh babies with that have a hook on them, and it had weighed at 9.3 kg, which was exactly correct and luckily the box was not overweight.

In the end, it was only €91 to post home, will take about a month, but that’s okay so $150 was pretty good as I remember paying $180 back in 2009 to post back gear from the UK. That done we high-fived each other! – what a mission it has been…. doesn’t need to be that hard, but we have found people here really do not want to do anything that they don’t want to do!

We decided to stop and have a quick snack for breakfast/brunch and tried some wholemeal looking pizza which was like a spelt base and had a minimal amount of toppings but was very nice. While sitting there I saw a standard schnauzer with an older guy, so had to go up and ask him if I could pat his dog of course! Standards are a lot more rare than the minis, and he was beautiful – very calm, but with an extremely coarse coat. 

Then we jumped on a hop on hop off bus so we could have an hour looking around the outskirts that were too far for us to walk, in Bologna. Had to laugh as you could only sit out on the top where it was uncovered, and it was extremely hot in the sun while we were waiting for the bus to leave, Graeme gave me his cap them fashioned a paper hat out of the city map we have been given. He then proceeded to change it around to lots of different styles of hats! 

Found out that the town has 34 km of porticos the most in the world! And that at one time it was law to have a portico when you built anything. They are so beautiful and it means you don’t get too hot as you don’t have to walk out in the sun. We also went up to a summit in the bus that looked right out over Bologna – so beautiful and looked just like Florence did all the years ago when we were there.

We came back and stopped at an outside cafe under one of the beautiful portico arches and enjoyed in aperol and lemonade and a Pinot Grigio for Graeme. We watched them building some massive scaffolding, which apparently is going to be a giant cinema screen where they will play movies each evening in the summer – a pity we aren’t there then. 

We tried some sliced mozzarella, tomato and a type of fried pasta which was like bread for lunch that we shared. Was very nice, then we went back to our hotel another 20 mins back and our feet were getting pretty tired – think we have done over 15,000 steps today again. We packed up our bags as we will be moving on tomorrow and I had spoken to Matteo who is on the front counter at Aemilia Hotel about the different options for transport to Lucca.

There was a 3 hour bus which had a change, or 2 1/2 hour train which also had a change, and we would’ve had to of walked and got a bus either side or a taxi. I asked him about any type of ride shares and he said there was one called bla bla car which is like Airbnb but with transport. It’s where people advertise rides when they’re travelling and these are much cheaper, but go through a company still so there is safety. Apparently it was started in France and has spread. I got on there and sure enough there was one tomorrow - going from Bologna to Lucca in the morning! So I contacted the guy…. we had lots of issues as the website won’t allow you to put anything in that looks private like phone numbers, and he only had a French phone number anyway that we couldn’t ring. Anyhow, the guy – Fred, rang me through the hotel in the end and we had a quick chat. He and his wife are from northern France and are travelling around Italy and do this quite often. How exciting to get a private ride without any stops or starts and they come and pick you up and drop you off. (It was only €32, although we ended up giving them €40). We will be meeting them tomorrow at 9:30 am when they pick us up from the hotel. The only small concern is whether our suitcases would fit in their fairly small car, but I think we can make it work, as we said we were happy to have a suitcase in between us in the backseat :-).

 We went out walking again to go to a restaurant for dinner about 7:30 pm – Graeme really wants pasta since we haven’t had any, and this is after all, Italy! We were pretty footsore by now, so started walking back to the old town, but then came across a little pasta restaurant called Mordi Fuggi (Translates to run!) !!which was full of people, despite a bit of a dingy street. We went in there and had a lovely meal of tagliatelle with a zucchini and mint sauce, and also a tortellini with a tomato base sauce, along with a small course course, which had eggplant and tomato in it to share. Was very nice washed down with a couple of local beers, for something like €53 in total, so not bad at all for these days.

We went for a long walk afterwards, and then back to the hotel, and into bed, feeling quite weary!