Receding seaside,
Chasing history through stone,
Revere the churches.
We awoke and stretched. It was a wonderful night's sleep... our first night in beds since we stayed with Gerardo some time ago, and it felt especially nice after biking so far. Today we're still a bit tired, but the sleep definitely helped.
Gianna served us a delicious Italian breakfast to start our day. Italian breakfasts consist of bread and jam and espresso and cookies and pastries and warm fresh milk. She told us about how her family gets all its food from local farmers that they are on friendly terms with, so the milk is really, really fresh. It was fabulous.
Gianna and her brother were kind enough to take us around Barletta all day! We took the car and hopped around from place to place, and thus we were able to see much more than would have been possible just walking.
Anyway, our first stop was the train station to make sure that we would be able to board the train tonight with our bicycles. Gianna worked as a translator, and she told us that the ticket window man said that the most important thing was that our bikes weren't bothering anyone. We didn't need to take them apart, maybe just the front wheel, and to just set them someplace out of the way once we got on. We probably would need to take the bags off, though, and put them someplace else. No extra charge!
Well, that's good. We bought the tickets for the night train (just 44€ each for a 9 hour train ride, which is pretty good) leaving Barletta at 22h11 and arriving in Venice at 6h45. We were pretty stoked. :)
From there, we went to see the old post office in Barletta, which had been the site of the execution of several Italians at the beginning of WWII. There are still bullets lodged in the walls there, and a little memorial is engraved in the stone of the building. We headed from the post office to the more downtown area, where we stepped inside the castle for a peek.
Gianna told us that the castle of Barletta is very famous, and also that her brother Peter used to work there. He was with us, and he managed to get us in for free by chatting with the woman at the ticket desk. It's good to know people who know people. Anyhoo, we strolled in and perused a painting and artifact gallery that lined the second floor. It contained things from the collection of just one man who had evidently been a huge fan of things from the olden days, and he had collected everything from suits of armor to invitations for fancy dress parties in Roma.
From there, we stepped onto the roof, where we got a fantastic view of all of Barletta. Gianna explained that the sea has receded from the castle, and that it used to lap at the foundations of the great fortress. She also explained that there were once puppet shows performed atop the parapets for eager children, and she was sad to see that they had ceased since her childhood.
Our wandering through the castle finished with a quick jaunt into the library. Gianna pulled out a book of Venetian art for us to look at as inspiration. The halls were jammed with students studying for upcoming exams, so we kept our voices down as we mused over the book.
Not far from the castle lay a pair of churches that Gianna wanted to show us: one the most famous in Barletta and the other her favourite. They are done in the Roman style, which is very muted and simple compared to the flambouyant Baroque style of cathedrals that we generally have seen along this trip. It was... nice, actually. The clean lines gave the entire church a sort of monastic quality, but it wasn't oppressively silent, either, since the sweeping arches still carried sound in beautiful ways.
After a stroll through the oldest part of the old town, we drove over to Trani to see their cathedral, which is more famous than any in Barletta. We unfortunately arrived too late, and it was closed (although the Internet had told us that it would be open for another hour...). We headed back into Barletta for some delicious gelato. The man who owned the shop was thrilled that a couple of people from North America had shown up in his store, and he thrust upon us sample after sample of delicious creaminess. We munched the flavours we had settled on as Gianna told us about a sculpture that had been rescued from the sea "back in the day." It was a nice piece, but I guess no one knew who it was...
After that, we went back to her apartment, packed our things, and headed to the train station. We said our good-byes and thank-yous to her family and set out. Gianna walked us to the platform, where we partially disassembled our bikes and removed all their bags. We wrapped a few things in garbage bags to make transportation onto the train easier whenever it should arrive, and we settled down to wait for the half hour or so that remained.
During that time, we chatted with several people on the platform who spoke varying amounts of English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. Language mixes are such fun!
The train arrived just on time, and we scrambled to load our things on as quickly as possible while it waited. An angry man in an official uniform scrambled down from a car behind and yelled at us in Italian that we could not go with the bikes on the train. He blocked our entrance to the car as he hurried everyone else to board, and we stood, dumbfounded. We shouted angry curses after the train as it left the station.
Some of the people we had met during the wait came up to us to see what was the matter and why were we not on the train. We explained what had happened, and they let us use their phone to call Gianna. She more-than-kindly agreed to have us stay at her home one additional night, and she even promised to help us sort this nonsense out in the morning. So, here we are. Man, trains are frustrating. I'd rather be biking.