Travel Tales: The Bari Edition

AKA What to do when the transport gods are against you

Before I tell you all about the travel woes that bookended our Bari experience, let me say that Mr Fletche and I liked Bari a lot. Sure, the modern city is a little shady in places. And we had a long day of being homeless before our 10pm flight home (more on THAT later) so our positivity wavered slightly after six hours of walking around. But there’s an excellent street food scene, a lovely seafront promenade and vibrant nightlife in the Bari Vecchia, particularly around the Largo Albicocca.

However, the transport gods really weren’t smiling on us. First we couldn’t get out of Karol Wojtyla Airport. And then we couldn’t get back to Karol Wojtyla Airport. And finally, we spent far too much time in Karol Wojtyla Airport. Surely we wouldn’t have any issues with trains at Bari Centrale? Would we?

Trying to leave Karol Wojtyla Airport

We land at 9:30pm with a plan in mind. I had booked us a B&B just a short taxi ride from the airport so we wouldn’t lose much time the following morning when we returned to pick up our hire car. We’d grab a cab from outside the airport and be tucked up in bed by 10:30pm. Except it takes us 45 minutes to get through passport control. When I switch my phone on, there are messages from our B&B host. Final time for check in is 10:30. I’m confident we’ll make it; we have no luggage to collect so it’s just a case of grabbing a cab and – oh wait. There are no taxis at the taxi rank. At all. My connection is spotty but I manage to get a message to our host. She promises to call us a cab, and will hang on to check us in.

And we wait. And we wait. The occasional taxi arrives to whisk away the few people in front of us in the queue. Some taxis stop at the start of the taxi rank. Others randomly stop in the middle. We leave the queue while we wait for the cab that has been called for us. It doesn’t arrive. Our host calls again, only to be told that there are no taxis. It’s now 11:15. We get back in the queue. Four taxis arrive in quick succession. We are 5th in the queue. I watch the SSC Bari Football Team leave the airport and consider trying to hitch a lift on their coach. We spy a taxi. It stops halfway up the rank, picking up a passenger that had just casually walked straight out the door. I gesticulate wildly.

I’m practically begging our B&B host not to lock us out. There’s another taxi coming in now. Mr Fletche has taken to standing at the other end of the taxi rank just in case. There are some people milling around behind me. They are NOT getting my taxi. I step out into the middle of the road and stick up my arm like I’m protesting an offside. And thankfully, he stops.

I practically wrestle the driver to get my suitcase in the boot, even before he’s lifted the lid. Only to find another man also throwing his suitcase in. I glower at him but our driver is more than happy to make an additional stop. Mr Fletche finally arrives from his end of the concourse. And wonders who my new friend is.

Our taxi ride is literally 5 minutes. I thank the driver repeatedly for the duration of the journey. Thankfully our hosts haven’t locked us out. Although its the quickest check-in ever as they are itching to get home and leave us to finally relax. Tomorrow morning, we’ll grab the local bus back to the airport, pick up our rental car and be on our way. It’s good to get our travel woes out the way early.

The morning after – the return to Karol Wojtyla Airport

After breakfast at a local cafe, we pack the few things we bothered to take out of our suitcase and check out. It’s at this point that we realise that Mr Fletche’s jacket, hastily bundled in to the taxi the previous night has disappeared. Our taxi driver friend not only charged us €15 for a 5 minute drive but is probably now walking round in a £40 M&S jacket.

It’s time to leave Bari behind for now. Our closest bus stop is a 15 minute walk away, and the thermometer is already soaring past 30° at 9:15am. At least Mr Fletche no longer has to lug around his jacket. There’s little shade as we finally spot the bus stop. Hopefully it’ll arrive soon. I try to make sense of the timetable with my rudimentary Italian.

(Yes, I know I’ve been doing Duolingo Italian for three years now but very little of it is useful unless I’m asking a clown in purple trousers if he wants to play basketball. Which has surprisingly not cropped up yet.)

Here’s the timetable for weekdays. And here’s the timetable for Saturdays and public holidays. There is no timetable for Sundays. Which is when it dawns on me that there may not actually BE a public bus on this route to the airport on a Sunday. The man who emerges from a house opposite confirms this by shaking his head and shouting “niente” – nothing – at us. Short of options we head back to the B&B, frantically messaging our host, who thinks she’s rid of us by now. Does she know if any public transport runs from the area on Sundays? The answer is no. I’m not sure if she means no, there’s no public transport, or no, she doesn’t know. For the second time in 12 hours I find myself frantically begging her to book us a taxi. She leaves my message unread for a worryingly long time.

Eventually, a taxi arrives for us. I am half expecting him to be wearing a £40 M&S jacket.

A week later…

We return to Bari after a wonderful time seeing the best that Puglia has to offer. There have been no more travel woes. We’ve had to return a little earlier than expected to Bari, thanks to our food tour being brought forward by two hours. We drop off our car, and then miss the airport shuttle to the city by a matter of seconds. In an unusual turn of events there are many taxis, just waiting to take our money. There is no sign of a taxi driver wearing a £40 M&S jacket.

24 hours later, it’s another successful taxi ride back to the airport. Now we’re just looking forward to getting home. We have plenty of time to kill and we arrive at the airport about four hours before our departure time. The weather on our final day had been mixed and the weather apps suggested there may be storms. I anticipate a bumpy flight home.

Bari Airport is shockingly short of seating so we spend a good portion of our waiting time sitting on the floor in the departure lounge. Eventually our gate is called and there’s more waiting at the gate. The rain is lashing down at the windows – it looks like we’re in a car wash. Lightning flashes all around us, and that’s when we all start to get a little uneasy.

Planes still fly in storms though don’t they?

There’s no sign of our aeroplane. It’s getting closer and closer to our boarding time, and then to departure time. Mr Fletche’s neighbour has a flight tracker on his phone. The good news is that our plane has landed safely. The bad news is that it is in Naples. We are not in Naples. We are in Bari. Where our plane is absolutely, most definitely not flying to tonight. The cancelled sign finally flashes up. We are stranded in Bari. It is 22:05.

Some people strike straight into action, booking flights and accommodation. Most of us however hover round unsure of what to do. We’re herded back through passport control, where they scribble out the stamp which says we’ve left the country. We most certainly haven’t. The staff appear as flustered as the bewildered passengers and we’re advised to queue up at Customer Services for further information. Three flights have been cancelled. About 500 people are in the queue. There are two Customer Services agents.

I still believe the myth that we will be looked after. Maybe they’ll send the plane to pick us up when the storm stops? Mr Fletche gently points that this is as likely as travelling home on a unicorn. I tentatively start to look at flights. Good news? There are two seats on tomorrow’s flight home! Bad news, it will cost £600. Even worse news? There are still about 200 people in the queue ahead of us. Tomorrow’s flight is soon sold out. And Monday’s flight. There’s a handful of seats on Tuesday’s flight. And only about 180 people in the queue ahead of us.

One of the Customer Service agents dares to come out and speak to those us increasingly anxious, frustrated queuers. The suggestion is that we make our own arrangements. They cannot help us get home. They cannot help us get accommodation. And they certainly won’t be providing us with any food or drink. After all, the airport is closing for the night. In fact, they can’t even guarantee we’ll get any compensation. The storm is not their fault. Which is fair enough, but it’s not our fault either.

It’s time to get practical

Our car is at Stansted. So that’s where we preferably need to fly to. Mr Fletche finds a Jet2 flight from Rome to Stansted, leaving Monday lunchtime. There are trains from Bari to Rome tomorrow. And I find us a reasonably priced hotel in Rome, in a good location. Within ten minutes, we have a solution. It usually takes me weeks to plan a journey like this. I fire off a quick message to my boss, apologising that I won’t actually be back in work Monday morning. I’ll be in Rome. Luckily I still have one day annual leave to take.

There’s still the issue of where to sleep tonight. There are no available hotels nearby. And even if we could book somewhere in the city – how would we get there? Mr Fletche had popped his head outside and declared the taxi drought even worse than the week before. It looks like we are going to have do a Tom Hanks and sleep in the airport. Are we even allowed? Will we be thrown out? And just HOW comfortable can an airport floor be?

Should the situation ever arise again, I found this handy website, all about Sleeping in Airports!

Some of our fellow passengers are hunkering down in the closed McDonalds eating area. We decide to follow suit. All of the comfy seating is taken – as is every area near a charging point. Charging mobile devices has become a competitive sport. Luckily we still have a full portable battery. Every inch of “indoor” floor space is taken, but we find an empty table on the edge of the cafe so we build ourselves a little fort underneath. Mr Fletche goes into hunter-gatherer mode. There are no vendors open but he manages to come back with a precious bottle of water and some chewing gum.

With my Travel Hack backpack as a (slightly lumpy) pillow, I try to get comfy. Maybe I can try and get a little sleep. Airport floors are NOT comfy. And they are cold. Oh, so cold. Travelling to Italy in September, with average temperatures of 30° plus, I didn’t think to pack a quilt in case I had to camp out. Maybe I need to rethink my packing tactics in future. I can’t read or listen to music as I’m conserving precious battery. Instead I listen to Mr Fletche, snoring softly. Feeling jealous that he is getting at least a few minutes of shuteye.

A rude awakening

I must doze off. And the only reason I know this is because all the lights go on and a woman is loudly shouting “Buongiorno” in an irritatingly chipper voice. It’s 4:30am and it’s time to open the café. She does not want dozens of stranded people lying on her floor. Bleary-eyed, we all mill around, sitting at tables that we had recently been sleeping under. At least coffee and croissants are now an option. People are beginning to arrive to catch early morning flights.

We kill an hour or so nursing a coffee. Our train from Bari to Rome is at 10:30. It’s 6:30am. We decide that we’ve seen enough of Bari airport for one trip. In our first stroke of travel luck, the bus to Bari Centrale is parked outside as we exit. And then the driver starts the engine, and starts to move off. Mr Fletche is not having it. He launches into a sprint Usain Bolt would be proud of, suitcase bouncing behind him, and me lagging some way back. The driver clearly spots the determination in Mr Fletche’s eyes and thankfully stops the bus. It takes just 20 minutes to return to Bari – a city we didn’t think we’d be seeing again quite so soon. Part 1 of our journey to Rome is complete.

The pain of the train

We have a couple of hours wait ahead of us. It’s back to sitting on a floor again. At first I regret not booking the 9:30 train. And then we watch as the 9:30 train is delayed. And then delayed some more. And then cancelled. And then we watch as 10:30 train is delayed. And then delayed some more. I can’t bear to watch the departure board anymore. The same storm that grounded our flight has brought down a tree on the track between Lecce and Bari.

Once again we find ourselves looking at alternatives. There’s a train later on this afternoon. Or there is a Flixbus, leaving at 11:30. Our train is not yet cancelled, but is still hovering around the 90 minute delayed mark. We just want to start our journey to Rome. So we book two bus tickets, and cancel our train.

After a quick recce to find the bus stop – in an insalubrious area beyond the train station – we head to the station cafe. Our table mates are a mother-daughter duo from our cancelled flight, and a pair of American girls, trying to get to Rome to continue a whirlwind Italian tour. In fact, I introduce myself to the Americans by knocking a glass of water all over the seat. I blame the exhaustion. We all share travel plans, and one by one our neighbours book bus tickets too.

And then we see the departures board. The delayed 10:30 train is on its way. The time of delay comes down rapidly, from 90 minutes to 45 minutes to 15 minutes. And not long after 10:30 the train to Rome is pulling into the station. Our new American friends have gambled, keeping hold of both train and bus reservations. We wave them off. Just another hour to wait for the bus.

The cafe staff are looking at us suspiciously. We’ve been sitting here for well over an hour, nursing a single drink. Mr Fletche goes and peruses their sandwich selection so we have supplies for our 5 hour bus journey ahead. We feel we’ve outstayed our welcome though so we grab our bags and make our way to the bus station.

It’s a busy road, and we’re not sure where the bus is going to stop. Mr Fletche checks the ETA on the app. It’s running late. Of course it is. But I’ve never been so happy to see a flash of green than when we spot the Flixbus rounding the corner. Naturally, it stops across the road from where we’re standing so we risk life and limb slaloming between traffic but we’re not letting this bus go without us.

Thankful for the humble bus

And do you know what? The bus journey was wonderful. Comfy seats, USB ports – finally – and some of the most beautiful scenery as we headed out of Bari and through the countryside around Naples. Somewhere out there, there are Ryanair passengers trying to get to Bari. There’s a 20 minute pit stop a couple of hours in, but the journey passes quickly.

The bus station is not in Rome’s centre, but it’s a short metro ride away. We didn’t use the metro at all during our trip the previous year but this time we make full use of it as our hotel is just 5 minutes walk from Castro Pretorio metro station (and handily 10 minutes walk from Roma Termini in the other direction).

After all the drama, our final afternoon ended up being one of our favourite days of the whole trip. The bus journey was a delight, and hotel – a spontaneous no research emergency booking – ended up being a charming place to stay. We were under no pressure to leave the comfy bed and explore Rome – after all, we’d visited the city just 12 months before. But despite the exhaustion we still found ourselves itching to get a glimpse of the Colosseum by night. Plus we needed to eat some proper food.

So it was back on the metro for a couple of stops, emerging right outside the magnificent amphitheatre, wearing her best evening sparkle. An unplanned evening in Rome is never a chore. Starving, we find La Base – a pub/pizzeria with a table available. 9 days into our 7 day Italian trip and we have our first pizza. They also do an excellent Black IPA. After all the stress of the past 24 hours we deserve to let our hair down.

Finally on our way home…

Do we dare to think that we might be on our way home, 38 hours late than planned? Roma Termini and Fiumicino Airport are wonderfully familiar, even if we didn’t expect to be seeing them again quite so soon. We start to see the same faces that we’d spotted at Bari airport, weary travellers making the same journey that we have.

We have never been so glad to be seated on an aeroplane. Even Jess Glynne shrieking “Darling, Hold My Hand” a million times over (thanks Jet2) takes on a gleeful tone. We look at each other, proud of dealing with our first major travel disruption without having a meltdown. We’ve learnt that spontaneous travel planning can be done. That crying and shouting does NOT get you a flight home. And that airport floors are cold and uncomfortable.

Think we have trouble woes? Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce An Orcadian Abroad? She has had some epic trip fails recently! Like a Riga & Ryanair disaster. And that time she flew into the completely wrong airport.