London to Bari by train.

Once more I managed to gain from the misfortune of others. Opportunism. My mate Thibault ended up with four more holiday days than his fiancee, so asked if I fancied going somewhere in early October. And so we hit upon the idea of a week in Southern Italy. Specifically we agreed on a road trip around Puglia and Calabria, the heel and toe of Italy's boot.

And Thibault decided he would like to get there by train. So we booked an epic journey - Eurostar to Paris on Friday after work, followed by train from Paris to Bari the next day changing at Milan.

But with spectacularly unfortunate timing, I got a message from my mate Dan that he was coming over from Vienna, and asking if I was free Friday night.  Obviously not. As it transpired, he was en route to his sister's wedding in Chesterfield, which, owing to the remarkable lack of direct flights from Vienna to Chesterfield, meant a stop over in London. And Dan is a very popular young man who of course had arranged to stay with one of his other London friends. But unfortunately they were ill, hence a sudden change of plans. Well all worked out, to a degree. Dan arrived early afternoon at my place, we had a chat for a couple of hours and I left him with my keys to stay the night while I set off for France. But not before getting a swift drink with him at St Pancras while awaiting Thibault from work.

Eurostar was very civilised. I made up a picnic and bought a half bottle of prosecco to drink on the train.

Someone looking pleased with life

We shared a tiny room at the expensive Mercure Paris Gare de Lyon, paying richly for the privilege of staying close to Gare de Lyon for our early morning departure to Milan. We were catching a 6:29am train, and needed some extra time to find it in the vast but poorly signposted station.

We had booked first class tickets all the way to Bari. We got into Milan just about 2pm and walked across the city to Milano Centrale. My only previous visit to Milan, nearly 40 years earlier, was also just to change trains. I think however it deserves a visit on its own sometime.

Eco friendly flats. Have seen these discussed in the media. Quite eye-catching. Vertical gardens.

Not all modern buildings

 So here is the famous Milano Centrale. A rather fancy edifice.

This is the view from our table for lunch in one of the station eateries. Cannot say I was impressed with the food. We did however purchase a very nice bottle of wine for the next leg of our journey. Well it is Italy.

And it was very pleasant trip to, leaving Milan at quarter to four and due into Bari at 10:30pm. Even caught a bit of the sunset.

 But the wine and all the excitement was just too much for the youngster...

As it was, we were only 10 minutes late into Bari, not a bad result on a 16 hour journey. We had booked a little two bed-roomed apartment, sadly at the top of a block with no lifts and very narrow stairs. Quite a haul late at night. But nice enough room for me. I let Thibault have the big one. Well my snoring had kept him awake the night before. Sorry Thibault!