1030, Thursday 31st May, heading south on the Adriatic coast road to Brindisi

Left Chiasso yesterday in glorious weather. It’s hot, hot, hot! 2km out of Chiasso we left Switzerland behind and entered Italy. The motorway around Milan was bedlam, and the exit from the toll booths was a free-for-all. You can imagine what it was like with numerous cars carrying impatient Italians! As we joined the motorway, the sat-nav told us to “continue for 604km.” If we’d wanted to, we didn’t need to leave the motorway until we were in Bari, just north of Brindisi. We travelled half of the 604 km then stopped for the night in a pretty little resort called Porto San Giorgio. Found a hotel near the marina called the David Palace but at €140 it was a bit over our budget. There was another hotel was just down there road, very comfortable and picturesque, and less than half the price of the David Palace.

Went out for food last night looking forward to more pizza. We had settled ourselves in a lovely restaurant with a table beside the beach, and had ordered drinks when we realised that fish was the only dish on the menu. What’s more, we couldn’t understand what type of fish we were asking for. David ordered spaghetti with some sort of fish and mushrooms, while I asked for calamari and “small fish.” We couldn’t wait to see what would arrive on our plates. Turns out David’s spaghetti came with cockles and mussels, no mushrooms. My “small fish” were deep-fried baby octopi. Mmmm, tasty.

This morning it is definitely t-shirt and shorts weather. 418km to Brindisi.