An aircraft seat on a ferry: Italy to Greece

I arrive into Bari in the middle of Monday afternoon, awash with sleepy sunshine. The journey from Bologna to Bari was a dreamscape of sea and sun and I stagger off the train feeling slightly drugged. At some point in the journey I had been joined by a member of the fisherfolk, or at least that's how she appeared to me in my sleepy state. Despite the warmth to my poor island soul, she was wrapped in a salmon coloured knitted jumper (mine had been cast-off long ago) and caramel trousers with sturdy walking shoes. She had incredible wrinkled brown nut skin and long hair which was knotted up securely on her head. She was as reticent as I, hiding herself within a book. Yet as we disembark we assess one another and offer a mutual smile of the fellow traveller.

After all that sea I had half expected to disembark on the very edge of the coast, yet Bari is a large city, with the Stazione Centrale about 2km from the port where I am to catch an overnight ferry to Patras, Greece. A very kind station guard (the first and only one to have these characteristics) interprets my fumbled Italian and directs me to the bus which will transport me to Bari Old Town and the port. My Rough Guide is also quite helpful and I read that I must buy a ticket prior to boarding. I take myself to the ticket office. After my pleasant experience with the Bari Centrale guard I bring out my rough and ready Italian to the bus ticket seller, who looks at me with total disgust. In response he rattles off very fast and fluent Italian and I stand before him, utterly humbled. I have no idea what he is saying. Not until I admit, in English, that I did not understand does he condescendingly tell me how much the ticket is, in English. I am utterly rebuked and at this realisation he offers his first smile. It is not a kind one.

On the bus an American backpacker tells me I must stamp my ticket in the small machines especially designed for this purpose. He tells me that if I do not I will be fined regardless of whether I have a ticket - the act of stamping validates it. I appreciate his help and yet find myself irritated when he sits next to me and after enquiring where I am going, begins to tell me how I should go about doing it. The assumption being that as I do not know about the ticket validation, well what can I possibly know? I do my best to shake him when I leave the bus but regret my English snobbery when I realise I have no idea how to get to the actual ferry. The port seems to be designed solely for car users and when I try and walk by the road I get yelled at by a security guard. I rather hope the American didn't witness that.

The actual crossing is incredibly smooth. The water is so calm that at times it feels like we are not even moving. My bed for the night is an 'aircraft' seat which is the cheapest passage on the ferry to Greece. I soon learn why. The seats are in one lounge, row after row of red reclining seats, dominated by large television screens, which I later learn do not ever switch off (the cult of the TV holds strong throughout my entire trip, with me as the hateful non-worshipper). Fortunately, bearing in in mind that I am not travelling in peak season, the seats are not full or at least not everyone who has booked a seat sleeps on it and so I manage to claim a whole row for myself which meant I could stretch out all night. It is another fractured night of sleep. Once again I praise the foresight of taking earplugs to drown out a loud Greek family who felt the need to conduct a conversation of shouts all night long, despite sitting next to one another, and a puppy which whines and barks continuously. I have repetitive dreams that someone is trying to steal my bag from underneath my head and wake up constantly in a panic. Stupid girl. I am not yet in laid-back traveller mode. Although paranoia is not necessarily a bad thing as I wake up at one point convinced a weirdo is stroking my leg. I find there is indeed a strange man sat by me staring at my leg. I glare at him until he moves away, although the next day I am not sure if he was real or a dream.

The next day dawns bright and clear and we dock at Patras at midday. It looks as though there are a thousand diamonds sparking in the sea.