After 40 days of travelling, we are sitting here on the port in Bari waiting for our ferry to board.  We’ve had a few ferry crossings now, some smooth, some – not so.  But this is the first one where we’ll get to sleep in the van on the crossing, which is kind of nice. 

I remember one crossing from Egypt to Jordan many years ago when all the travellers were off to Mecca on the Haj and we were very nearly crushed to death getting onboard.  Some tiny old lady grabbed Kerry by the hand before she was trampled underfoot by a thousand pilgrims and dragged her through the crowd.  No little octogenarian was there to save me and when I made my own way through the mass of humanity, we cleared a little space and fell asleep on the top deck amongst the hordes.

Not so today, we are in a compliant queue of European retirees.  Italy is on the other side of the gates, so no one is trying to bustle past anyone and it all feels quite orderly for the first time in nearly a month.

I’d randomly set this date on a cold night, sometime back in February as a reasonable point to leave Italy, cross to Greece and begin the journey home.  In hindsight it was not enough time to do everything we wanted and I fear we may have not left enough time to do everything we’d still like to do.  Back on my couch in the midwinter ninety days seemed such a fantastical amount of time.

Sicily feels like a lifetime ago, and only yesterday we were in the fascinating city of Matera whose history stretches back over nine thousand years and really does feel ageless.  I could spend so much more time in Southern Italy and I’d love to travel Sicily minus our extraordinarily beautiful dog and in a vehicle far better suited to the tiny roads.

My driving, has become a bit more Italian, I have to confess.  Pushing through, screw the indicators and turning at my own convenience actually make driving a bit more exciting but it was Kerry who first started with the horn beeping this morning.

Our last day in Italy has been one of the most pleasant we’ve had.  We found a wonderful sculpture park amongst and old quarry just out of Matera.  Giant art installations were dwarfed by the vertical walls of the quarry that helped build the third oldest city in the world.  While the Marjoram underfoot released its scent into the air, the whole morning felt a bit timeless.

This afternoon we gave up on the idea of wandering through another big city, gave Bari a miss and headed for the tiny port of Giovinazzo, which is not really on the tourist trail.  There we wandered through the mass of marble stone streets, but unlike every other one we visited, these were empty, completely devoid of tourists.  Only street cats prowled the alleys and all of them, without exception, would choose fight over flight in a battle against Chloe.

It was eerily silent and absolutely special.  As was our lunch from an old hole in the wall eatery where Kerry was presented with an embarrassing number of Bruschetta and I had my first Caprese of the trip which was made with the most milky and finely textured mozzarella.

We had already planned on taking a week off travelling, a holiday within the holiday, and we’ll do that in the next couple of days, somewhere on a Greek beach.  When we do set off home, we won’t push so hard.  We got carried away in Italy because there is just so much you should see but we’ll take a bit of a chill pill as we head North through Eastern Europe.