Bari, Pasta Town

Tuesday was another sea day where Brian, Liam and Fiona were recovering. Liam went into quarantine while we were in Rome. Both Fiona and Brian were out of quarantine Tuesday. On Wednesday we arrived in Bari, Italy at 11 AM. Liam was released from quarantine at 10 so we celebrated with a family brunch in the main dining room. We were at a table near aft windows and watched as Oosterdam did a 360 degree pirouette in the confined harbor to be able to pull out head on later this evening.

After Brunch some of us (The adults and Elias) went into Bari. Suzi and I had been to Bari before, or more accurately through Bari because it is the ferry port that is the gateway to the Balkans, with sailings to ports in Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Greece. We spent the night in Bari once, but we didn’t spend much time sightseeing. The last time we were here was when we evacuated Yugoslavia before the NATO bombing. We were running training in Montenegro. It was going well. I got a call from the Executive Officer (XO) at the Embassy telling us to leave. I told him I felt safe in Montenegro, we were doing a Kotor Journalism Summer School session with reporters from all the ethnicities in the Balkans and it was going well. The XO asked me to step onto my room’s balcony at the Hotel Fjord. “Look to your right. What do you see?”

“A VJ (Yugoslav military) patrol boat.”

“Right, if you don’t want to see the nose end of a cruise missile get your ass out of there NOW!”

We took the suggestion. It turns out that this was a way diplomats communicate with countries with which they do not have diplomatic relations. They count on phones being tapped. What the embassy was saying to the Montenegro government was “Even though we have no gripe with Montenegro you are still part of Yugoslavia. Be prepared for us to hit Yugoslav military assets in your republic (and we know exactly where they are). Sorry about that.”

Suzi and I told our class we were leaving on the ferry to Bari. They pled with us to stay. “Don’t go to Bari. You will be mugged. You’re safe here, we’ll protect you.” We went to Bari, had a nice dinner, spent the night and were just fine. Our boss told us to go to Venice to await further orders. They came several days later so we got a Venice city break.

I found out later that my cousin Johnny’s family originally came from Bari so I wanted to give it some more time this time. But it was hot. We wandered through the old city and after stopping at a café Suzi and I decided we had it. It was in the 90s with high humidity.

Elias came back to the ship with us while Liz. Brian, Shannon and Kevin explored the ‘pasta Street, a street where ladies set up tables and make pasta, set it out to dry, bag it and sell it. It is a Bari tradition and is one of the great tourist attractions. Although Suzi and I did not get to “the” pasta street we found some bagged fresh pasta for sale on one of the streets we did visit. I’m using some of Liz’s pics of pasta.