To Taranto

April 7, 2023

We’ve set the alarm on both iPads and are up at 5:45 for our 7 AM departure for Taranto, the final leg of our three day train journey. The station is only an easy three block ride away, but we’re allowing a full half hour to get there in case something goes awry - our host doesn’t arrive at 6:30 to pick up the keys for example, or we have a flat tire and have to push.

Nothing goes wrong though - we port our gear down four flights of stairs, unfold and load the bikes, and are ready to go just a minute before Boris walks up, collects the keys, asks how our stay was in his broken English through his apparently Russian accent, and lets us know that the next time we come to Scalea we should just book with him directly. We thank him, and then bike off to the station. We don’t mention the disintegrating blue bath towels, because he wouldn’t understand across the language barrier. We’ll probably send him a note though.

We get to the station with twenty minutes to spare. I shuttle the loaded bikes down the spiral ramp to the underpass and up the ramp to our departure gate, and wait for Rachael to arrive with the two americani she picked up at the neighboring bar. They help cut the chill off the morning while we wait for our train, which arrives precisely on time.

The long train arrives, and we intently watch for the bike logo as the cars pass by. We don’t see one, but we assume it must be at the end of the train as usual so we run to the final car and load the bikes on. There’s no space for bikes though, so we prop them against the closed door to the empty final seating compartment because there’s no other choice, and take our seats.

Ten minutes later the agent comes through, takes our tickets, takes note of the bikes awkwardly propped against the door, and shrugs. There’s no better option, but he’s at least not acting like he’s going to throw us off the train. He does say though that we’ll have to watch out for boarding passengers.

About two stops into the three hour ride to our transfer point at Battapaglia, Rachael’s bike slumps halfway to the floor. I prop them both up again and then stand next to them to make sure they don’t slide down, planning to keep standing for the next two hours.

The train’s been nearly empty until just before Agropoli, when for the first time many passengers board, the car quickly fills up, and some folks need to get past the bikes and to the back end of the car where there’s more seating. Not long after the agent comes through checking tickets, looks around at the crowd, and says that at the stop coming up we should move the bikes to the front end of the train where there are hangers for the bikes.

The train stops at Agropoli, a more significant stop. We lift the bikes down the three steep steps to the platform, and then head to the front end. It’s a long train. We run.

At the right end this time. Much better! It’s nice to be able to sit down again.

We arrive at Battapaglia in plenty of time for the intercity departure to Taranto, scheduled for departing over on track 2. There’s an elevator to the sottopssagio, which is great even though it’s small and will only accommodate one bike and then only if stood up on its rear wheel. I manage the bikes on the elevator and Rachael takes the stairs and receives them at the other end.

The train is an intercity, which we assume requires paid bike reservations like the one to Scalea did, but somehow we were ticketed without them. There’s time, so Rachael heads off to the ticket window to get the bikes ticketed while I stand on the platform watching the bikes. It’s quite cold and breezy and most of the platform is in the shadows of a canopy, so while I wait I walk down to the end of the platform and stand in the sun to keep more or less warm. Rachael returns and joins me in the sun, and informs me that bikes travel free on this one.

In Battapaglia. I’m just inside the sun zone, and the bikes are way off in the distance. You can dimly see them on the right if you zoom in.

Our train is fifteen minutes late. While we wait I’ve moved down by the bikes for security because a crowd is forming while Rachael continues standing in the sun. A southbound train comes on track 3 and swallows nearly everyone on the platform, and then we wait again. Suddenly I see Rachel running my way because she’s seen our train coming on platform 2. It arrives, we’re happy to see the bike logo and that there are no steps on this one (every train seems just a bit different!), so I wheel my bike on and look for a rack.

I’m immediately confronted by an agent who blocks my passage and shakes his head. I’m not getting past. I try to explain that we’re ticketed and bikes are OK, but it’s a no go. He insists I get off. Finally I understand. This isn’t our train, and it’s not really here to pick up passengers.

I turn the bike around and wheel the bike off and immediately face our train, which is just pulling up. But it’s on track 3, not 2. Our train apparently got reassigned to a different track at the last minute while my back was turned. The train is behind schedule and won’t be here long, so we run to what we assume is the right end for the bikes. Once again, we pick wrong. For the next three hours Rachael and I take turns sitting on a hard, cold step with a foot under the front wheel of my bike to act as a chock so they won’t roll and fall down.

Not the ideal way to pass a few hours. It’s nice that we could spell each other off when our butts got too sore.

An agent comes by and says that when we get to Potenza we should get off and run down to the other end of the train where of course there are bike hangers. When Potenza comes though he returns and says that we should stay put after all because the train is behind schedule and won’t be in station long enough for us to move.

It’s a long, cold, uncomfortable ride - but gorgeous as we pass through the same rugged, green, intensely eroded Basilicatan landscape we’d originally planned to bike through. We look at narrow paved roads snaking up hills at crazy pitches and feel very good about being here on board the train instead of pushing up those slopes for a week and a half.

We get to Taranto. We did it! And here, I just want to say that for all the stress involved, we’re deeply grateful to the Italians for having such a robust train system. As Americans especially, it’s really hard to fathom a country that has invested so heavily in all this impressive infrastructure. It’s especially impressive here in the south, where it seems like half of the journey is through one long tunnel after another. It takes some planning and forethought to make your connections and manage your bikes, but it’s no surprise that there’s such variation in rolling stock and station architectures. The fact that they keep maintaining and upgrading the system over time is truly impressive.

Taranto is great, as is our apartment in it. It’s an easy bike ride across the small island in the center of the city and then south along the sea through a delightful tree-lined park with a bike lane down the middle to our apartment two miles away.

The bike path above the seaside park along the west side of the city. This is on the more modern southern part of the city, below the small island that holds the historical center.

The apartment is terrific. We can check ourselves in when we arrive about 1:30, when the entrance door unlocks after we call our host whom we never actually see. Rachael goes to the store while I take a nap, and then I work on the blog while Rachael takes a nap; and then at 5:30 we go restaurant shopping and for a look around town, another of those places we’re seeing for the third time.

Taranto is too industrial to really quite be a tourist destination, but it’s certainly interesting and well worth a stop and look around. A city between two seas with the historical center on a small island, there is an abundance of seascapes to be admired as well as enough churches, fountains, crumbling plaster, faded paint, boats and cats to hold your interest. We can’t claim to have done the city justice, but we really enjoy just walking around and seeing what we stumble across. And we enjoy a delicious fish dinner - a whole one, picked from the display of the day’s catch laid out on a bed of ice, and skillfully deboned for us at our table.

The view west across the Mare Grande, the big sea.

The facade of the Palazzo del Governo, the regional government building.

Some seaside wall art, on an epic scale.

Looking south along the Mare Grande. The greenery below is the Lungomare Emanuele Vittorio III, the seaside park.

A statue honoring sailors stationed at Taranto, home of Italy’s second largest naval fleet.

On the east side, looking across the Mare Piccolo, the Little Sea.

A sea of buoys. I wonder when the water is filled with boats moored at them.

We’ve found our restaurant, in an alley on the eastern side of the island. I spend my time poking around the wharf bordering the Piccolo Mare while Rachael explores the old town as we wait for our restaurant to open.

For Graham. Raffo, the beer of the Two Seas, is the traditional beer of Taranto. Sadly though it’s no longer an independent brewery, its label bought out and manufacturing moved to Bari.

It’s dark when we leave the restaurant. Google tells us that we have a fifteen minute walk back to our room, but it takes us closer to an hour. We don’t get lost, we get trapped - in the dense crowd following the course of the Good Friday Paso as it slowly inches its way down the street. It’s a long procession with the band up front, I think five different platformed statues toted by beefy bearers and interspersed by hooded barefoot penitents looking out through pinprick eyeholes. Very slow going as we work our way through the barely moving crowd. We’re both quite claustrophobic when we finally come to the front end of the procession and can at last turn the corner toward our room.

Today's ride: 2 miles (3 km)
Total: 349 miles (562 km)

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Graham FinchMaybe you'll find a micro-brewery over there... there must be some by now. My local supermarket had bottles of Peroni on sale, but I passed.
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