Sunday, October 14, 2007

Day Twelve - another country down

We managed to travel a magnificent 497 miles today.

We travelled down Italy to Lecce. Stopping in Bari along the way to sample their food speciality: "Orecchiette with Cime di rape", little ear-shaped pasta with turnip tops.

The more cultured of the group stopped off at the The church of St. Sabinus (see photo), an important example of Apulian Romanesque architecture. I led the less high-brow members of the team to the Old Town to see the town's other claim to fame. It is "known throughout Italy for its strong, often crude, spoken dialect, particularly in the Old Town, parts of which originated from a pidgin between Italian and Greek fishermen in the past, and which fishermen in Greece can still understand today". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari

After being shocked to the core by the crude langage, we crossed the sea to Albania, and settled in Çorovoda, according our faithful travel guide (yo olde wikpedia) "Some archaeologists believe Çorovoda might be the oldest city in Albania. They have found ruins of some churches and a buried castle in Rovica which might be more ancient than the castle of Berat".

The total distance traveled in twelve days is 1850 miles - rather impressive I think - so thanks to all involved. We have well over 20,000 to go though, so we must dig deep.

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