Setting off

We were up at 7 to finish last-minute packing (beach towel? flip-flops?) and have a usual breakfast. We had the usual conversation about my only wanting half a banana on my muesli. We saw on the news that the EU referendum government website crashed after last night's debate between Cameron and Farage.

I made some sandwiches and we packed a drink for the journey to Milan. We checked all the balcony plants and Richard took out the compost. I checked my emails - nothing new. I will just look at Facebook and messages on my phone.

The weather in Split is forecast to be sunny but we are taking an umbrella just in case. We need to catch the 9.07 bus to get the 9.38 S24 train to Zug. Looking forward to visiting three countries in five days. And taking lots of photos.

On the train to Milano through the Gotthard tunnel

On our way!
The journey by train went  quite smoothly apart from a couple of delays on the Italian trains. I had time in Zug to buy a Good Housekeeping magazine for the journey, and I also read A Tomb in Turkey by Simon Brett on my Kindle. We went through the old Gotthard tunnel, which will be replaced by the new shorter one from Erstfeld in the new year. Nice to see the scenery including the church that the track loops round three times. The weather was sunnier south of the Alps.

We had sandwiches on the train and then a beer at Milano Centrale, a large palatial station with lots of steps and WiFi access. The next connection was to Bologna; we travelled at 298 kph according to the train information. There we found our connecting train to Lecce via Rimini and Ancona, but it was running 28 minutes late.

Our ferry was a Blue Line boat - very nice

In Ancona we took an expensive taxi to the ferry port and found the ticket office where we collected our pre-booked tickets. Ferry lines SNAV and Blue Line appear to share boats, and we went on a Blue Line ferry this time, called Regina della Pace. Our passports were checked about four times and the luggage was scanned. The boat staff were mainly Asian, Chinese and Filipino, and were very helpful.Our cabin was below the main deck on deck 5, and was well equipped.

We had dinner in the main restaurant, including some Croatian Degarta Posip white wine. I had cheeses, sea bass and panna cotta with berries. We had to pay cash, which was a theme during the whole holiday. The cabin was quite noisy due to piped music until 22.00 and I was disturbed by the vibration of the engines underneath us. I woke twice during the night, so par for the course.