17 May 2009, Bari – Today marked the arrival point for half of our group with Elina and Sam coming to the end of their pilgrimage after 535 kilometers. It was cause for celebration, but with all of us a little knackered the festivities were somewhat muted (no discos, no bars until 3 in the morning, no midnight dips in the ocean).

After washing ourselves and our clothes, standard operating procedure after arrival for any pilgrim, we found a café on the edge of Bari Vecchia and relaxed in the shadow of the Svevo Norman Castle. Then it was off to meet Clara Copeta, a professor at the university here in Bari who contacted me with the kind offer to take us on a guided tour around the old town. If you haven’t been to Bari Vecchia, get here to enjoy the beauty and if possible have Clara be your guide because her enthusiasm is contagious.

Coming to a big city for the first time in 17 days was something of a shock for us. A very nice shock actually because Bari is so full of life. The old town was packed with people out and about enjoying the nice weather. Upon querying the waiter at our restaurant we were informed that it will be like this every night for the entire summer.

We left Molfetta this morning and followed the coast down to the edge of Bari after which it took us a good 90 minutes to actually arrive in the center. Large parts of the walk were right on the edge of the sea and afforded us excellent views of the inviting Adriatic. We also had to confront busy roads for parts as there was no other way to come down the coast. There has been some cloud cover the last few days so the asphyxiating heat of last week has disappeared.

After a dearth of declarations of love, there has been a sudden explosion the last few days, maybe it has something to do with the sea air. It was difficult choosing what to include here. Keep in mind that this is an incomplete set, but the book will have them all along with translations.

There was no post yesterday for our walk from Barletta to Molfetta because we all got distracted playing cards late into the night, but there are some pictures included in this post because we passed a few places that were too beautiful not to include.

Sam will do a final guest post in a few days when he is back in Milan with some reflections on our trip.