Saturday, April 20, 2002 13:15
Weather: Gorgeous, not too hot, sunny
Location: Lava-blu laundramat, Rome

A spectacular day, but I've got a lot of travel to do starting tomorrow morning to get to Greece, so I'm concentrating on errands today. Laundry, booking travel arrangements, and (hopefully) getting a haircut -- and maybe a nice wander around the Palatine hill later on.

Most of yesterday afternoon was spent catching up on the diary, ample evidence that I need to stay on top of it. Afterwards I wandered up to see the Trevi fountain and found a café to read the Herald Tribune. For a change of pace I decided to see a movie in the evening. English language options are helpfully listed in the IHT's Italy Daily insert. With the help of the café's cashier, I located the cinema on the map, southwest of me on the other side of the river, and walked down to it.

It was a beautiful evening. I picked up a couple of pieces of pizza to much on as I walked. The river was calm, lined with trees and quiet avenues. I crossed at the Ponte Sisto, an elegant pedestrian bridge, and had a wonderful view upstream with the dome of St. Peter's lit up by the sunset looming over the trees, and birds wheeling in the sky. The cinema was a few blocks further through some narrow winding streets, clearly older in layout and construction than the wider vias of the east shore. The neighbourhood, the Trastevere, seems to be full of atmospheric bars and restaurants, and I'll probably try to get back there for dinner tonight.

From a short list of options I decided to see "Monster's Ball". I enjoyed the movie, though its themes were obviously oriented towards the American issues of capital punishment and racial integration in the south, and didn't seem to travel that easily when viewed from Canadian eyes in Europe. As the loudmouth in the row behind me pointed out at the end, the plot was pretty preposterous. Still, the acting was great--I'm a fan of Billy Bob Thornton, and Halle Berry wasn't bad--and there were some moments of surprising humour mixed in with real sadness. Worth the €5, anyway.

I slept in in the morning and had a surprisingly tasty breakfast of instant coffee and little cakes (provided with the apartment as the breakfast included in the B&B price) before heading out to do my laundry.

I think the dryer's almost done. Time to say goodbye to the little girl sitting next to me, Jenny, and get on with the rest of my day.

[later]

18:00

Frustrating waste of time trying to book my ferry ticket. The second phone number I have for Superfast Ferries also goes to a fax machine, and the only travel agency I could find that was open, in the Termini train station, sent me around to three different desks (wait time of 20-30 minutes each) before telling me they couldn't, in fact, book ferry tickets. At least I got the train ticket to Bari set.

Incidentally, though Brindisi is closer to Greece than Bari, it's worth noting that during the "winter" (apparently still on) there aren't any trips from Brindisi to Patras, only to Corfu and Igoumenitsa. Bari has a ferry to Patras that stops briefly in Igoumenitsa, so that's where I'm going. Hopefully I won't have any trouble booking the ferry trip at the ferry office itself!
posted by Tom at 11:58 AM | link |