Saturday 3 July 2010 Zadar to Ancona

Saturday 3 July 2010 Zadar to Ancona (ferry)

Our post-sail drinks last night with Ivan and Melita and Dragan (the Manager of the charter company) were great and we planned to catch up with Ivan and Melita for lunch tomorrow as our ferry to Ancona leaves at 10pm.  Dragan gave us the use of the boat to stay on for the whole day as it wasn't booked out.  It was very nice of him as it meant we had a base for the day and somewhere to store our bags.

It would have been very easy to take the boat for another week but we both new that it’s time to go home.  So we woke up in the morning with heavy hearts to get on the Internet and start booking; the ferry to Ancona, the train to Rome and then the flights to Australia.  There was mild panic when we looked at the ferry timetable and found that on Saturday’s it leaves at 1200 so we only had 3 hours to get organised.  We were so close to staying a couple more days and going on the next ferry on Monday but we knew it was time.  We were so upset we couldn't have lunch with Ivan and Melita.  

So it was ‘mad rush’ time.  I raced around the harbour on my bike to buy the ferry tickets, only to find that I needed my passport to buy the tickets so I raced back but then realised that it didn't matter as we could buy the ticket when we boarded?  Never mind I needed the exercise.  Ivan was on the boat when I got back so the three of us went and had a coffee. 

After coffee and goodbyes we made our way to the ferry and there we began the multi-day journey home, with this leg nicknamed “phase one”.  Six hours later we docked at Ancona  and got another stamp in our passport - yay!  We had pre-booked a hotel, opposite the train station but the price of the convenience was a dodgy neighbourhood.  No sooner had we arrived there was a melee outside a cafe two doors down, we decided then and there to get the earliest train out of Ancona!  Once we were settled we ventured out to find some dinner, unfortunately we had our blinkers on and turned right out of the door only to find a little deli with dried out pizza after a 20 minute walk.  Had we turned left there was a respectable restaurant not 100 metres down the road - I then found myself humming Alannis song once again.

Phase one complete