It feels like a long time ago that we left Tirana for Italy on October 6, because it was. Over 100 days ago in fact. That’s how far behind I am on this blog. But I’m going to do my best to remember and capture the wonderful time we had during our first days in Italy. After feeling somewhat disappointed with Albania, we were so happy to be back in Italy. And as always, Italy didn’t disappoint at all. In fact, we fell even more in love with it.

Tirana Departure

One reason we chose Albania and Tirana is that there is an overnight ferry from the nearby coastal town of Durres to Italy, meaning we wouldn’t have to get on a plane. In fact, we avoided flying throughout the whole of this leg once we arrived in Sofia back in August. I reserved a taxi to take us to the ferry terminal via WhatsApp through a company with electric taxis. They quoted 2400 lek or around $30, which was a great price. They were a little late picking us up but I’d built in plenty of time (too much time) before our 8 p.m. boarding time. 

We arrived just before the check in counter opened at the ferry terminal (I believe around 5) and after checking in, we walked with our luggage across the pedestrian bridge to find a place to have dinner. This proved a little more challenging than I’d hoped because Google maps wasn’t very accurate with the opening times. We ended up at a hole-in-the-wall place close to the pedestrian bridge on the other side called Tedi’s. It was very traditional Albanian food but good. They didn’t take credit card but I found an ATM where I could pull out enough lek to cover the meal and our morning coffee on the ferry, so it worked out well. The ATM also had the option for euros so I went ahead and got some of those as well. 

To board the ferry, we went through Albanian passport control, which was very quick and then walked onto the boat. There was an elevator to the lobby and we went to the desk to get our room keys. They make you leave a passport with them as insurance for the key, but this seemed standard. When we got to our room, we found we’d been upgraded from a private two-person cabin to a four-person, which is more spacious and meant we could both sleep on a bottom bunk. I slept very badly but Chad did okay. Overnight was smooth enough but the water got choppy in the morning and I ended up a little bit seasick. But the important thing was that we made it to the Italian port city of Bari.

Morning in Bari

Because we were hauling our luggage down several slights of stairs, we were among the last to leave the boat and there were no taxis left. However, we found a bus stop on Google maps that looked like it had a bus that would take us directly to the train station where we’d be able to store our luggage until our afternoon train. There were several other travellers waiting uncertainly for the bus but it arrived not too long after. It was good I’d gotten the euros because the driver could only take cash for the 1.5 euro per person fare. It ended up being a much cheaper and easier ride to the train station than having to find and negotiate a taxi. In most of Italy, Uber is only used for booking luxury rides, not really our style.

We left our two suitcases and Chad’s big backpack at the luggage storage and headed out to explore Bari. We walked several blocks into Bari Vecchia, the old town, and found a nice-looking cafe across from a church for our first Italian cappuccino of the trip. It was very tasty and we split a local specialty pastry called Tette delle Monache (translation: “nun’s breasts”).

Once caffeinated, we walked around the main part of the city and coastline. One thing that really struck us about Bari is how crowded it was. There were tons and tons of tour groups, many of them American but really covering many nationalities. I suspect they were mostly coming from cruise ships, since Bari is a port city. But it really amazed us how many tourists there were in Bari. It was definitely worth seeing, though, and a morning felt sufficient if you’re not trying to go inside any of the museums. We just went into the Basilica San Nicola, an important church originally built in the 11th century.

Bari is especially known for orecchiette pasta, a little shell-shaped pasta that I think is named for the Italian word for ears. They certainly look like little ears! In my little bit of Bari research, I discovered that local women known as nonnas (grandmothers) sell handmade orecchiette on the street near the fort and a famous old arch. After a little bit of looking, we found a table set up outside an open door where, sure enough, a nonna was rolling orecchiette. She sold us a bag for for 2.5 euros and when we made it in Perugia, it was delicious. We closed out our morning in Bari with a truly fabulous lunch at a restaurant called Antò that served handmade local pasta. I ordered spaghetti with mushrooms and Chad got an orecchiette with anchovies and we shared both, which were excellent. 

After lunch we returned to the train station for our luggage and got on our 3-hour train to Ancona. It was a beautiful ride up the coast and I couldn’t resist taking bad photos out the window. I love the sea!

Ancona Arrival

We arrived in Ancona in the late afternoon. I’d planned to take a taxi to our hotel, which was only about a mile from the train station. But the taxis had a 12 euro minimum that felt a little steep so we decided to walk. What we didn’t know is that the hills of Ancona are also very steep and it was a fairly challenging trek up to our hotel. But we made it and checked in and the view from our room over the harbor made it worth the steep climb. Next time, however, I think I’d just pay the taxi. We were pretty tired from the ferry and our sightseeing in Bari so we just went out for a quick pizza at a restaurant called Sepofa and picked up a few things for breakfast at the local grocery store, Coal.

The next day, we needed to catch up on work so we just did a morning walk to check out Ancona and a very nice picnic by the bay with a sandwich from a local deli. When researching restaurants I discovered that many did a good aperitivo (Italian happy hour with small plates) and served amari, Chad’s new obsession, so we decided instead of dinner we’d do a mini pub crawl in the Piazza del Plebiscito. It has lots of very charming bars with good aperitivo specials, though we the portion at the first bar, King Edward Royal Pub, was enough that we did an evening walk before finding our second at Civico 61.

Ancona Self-Guided Tour

For our other full day in Ancona, we wanted to do some sightseeing so Chad put together a self-guided tour with help from ChatGPT. We learned about Porta Pia, which we could see from our hotel window, Mole Vanvitelliana (a pentagon-shaped old fort and quarantine station), Arco di Traiano and its adjacent wall connecting to Arco Clementino, then up the hill to Cattedrale di San Ciriaco and several other churches. 

We capped off the tour with lunch at Alambicco Gin and Food where we split a primi (pasta course) and a secondi (meat or fish course) that were again excellent. We followed that up with gelato and probably a nap. We managed to eat lightly enough at lunch that we were able to visit one more bar, Raval, on the Pizza del Plebiscito for a last aperitivo before leaving Ancona the next day by train. It billed itself as a tapas bar and we enjoyed ordering several things to try. 

Ancona is a really charming city and I’m glad we spent a few days there on our way to Perugia. Traveling by ferry and train was much nicer than flying and it was a lot of fun exploring these two ancient coastal cities.

Hotel Review – NH Hotel Ancona – Very nice hotel at the top of a hill with a great view over the harbor. Staff were professional and friendly at check in and check out. The room was very clean and a good size. It was nice to have the mini-fridge during our three-night stay. We loved the view from our room, which I think was an upgrade. The hill is steep but not a bad walk to the city center and the hotel is well worth the climb back up when returning. I’d stay here again.