Wednesday April 19, 2023
In the morning we enjoy another nice breakfast of croissants with jam and cappuccino. We thank Francesca for her kindness and she gives us some biscuit type cookies as a gift as well as a drawing that she made herself. Another wonderful experience for us. We walk to the train station without a hitch as we now knew the error of my ways from our arrival. We get to the track 15 minutes early to discover that the train is 10 minutes Ritardo. This is not good as we have a 15 minute connection in Bari and a few minutes walk to a different station for our train to Matera. That is a different local train company Ferrovie Apulia Lucane and not part of the trenitalia train network. The only good thing is our tickets are good all day so if we miss the connection it just costs us time. I look again and the board now says 15 minute ritardo so we will definitely miss the connection. However a few minutes later, it switches back to 10 minutes and then the train arrives only 5 minutes late. This gives us hope. We end up arriving right on time so even better. We leave the one station and walk to the FAL train station which says our train is on track one. A sign points to an elevator. We push the button and wait, nothing seems to be going. Gwen asks two people who both point to the elevator as the way to the tracks. Several minutes later it opens and up we go. There has got to be another way up but it was a good thing we did not have to rush as the process was slow. Our train arrives and leaves Bari on time. Later when we reach Altamira, we discover we do not have to change trains as advertised. This is a pleasant surprise and 30 minutes later we are in Matera. We are staying in two separate places and our host said he would meet us in the Piazza Duomo and take us to our house from there. It looks like the easier of the two so we all go there first with the idea that we will then go to Dave and Gwens place. Matera is an old city with a labyrinth of streets and stairs with no names so may be tricky to navigate. However signs pointing to the Duomo makes it easy to find. Cesare greets us at the Duomo as advertised and Dave and Gwen decide to wait there while we check in. Our place is really nice. Cesare does not speak any English but I understand 90% of what he says. He is very nice shows us the place gives us his number if we need anything and says goodbye.
Meanwhile at the Duomo…Gwen texted that they were going to walk to their place. I had Carol tell them to stay put we will be there in a few minutes. I was checking google maps to find the easiest way to their place and found a way from the Duomo. We head out and when we get to the Duomo, they are gone. We walk down several long flights of stone steps and end up on the street they are off of well below the Duomo above. I had marked a restaurant that was very close to their place and we walk until we see it, then look across the street and there is a sign for their place. We wait by a room we think is theirs and Carol sees a message from their host that says the reception is below the rooms on the Main Street and she will wait for them there. Carol sends Gwen a text asking if they are here and a reply says no they are lost, the directions on her phone are not working. We see a lady waiting by a door and I head there and she calls me David. She speaks very good English which helps a lot as I explain we are their friends and they are lost. She invites us in to the reception room but the service is not good inside so I go outside to text them and try to figure out where they are. I get a picture from Gwen which does no good for me as I do not know what anyplace looks like here. I go down and show it to the lady and she knows exactly where they are and tells me to tell them to stay put and we will go get them. This involves several more stair master exercises to climb back up to where they are. We finally find the wayward travelers and now do the stair master in reverse back down to their place. We reach the reception room and their host tells us some of the history of Matera and the part of town they are in. It is more medieval than ancient somewhere in the range of 200 to 300 years old. While Dave and Gwen are freshening up in the room, their host give us a tour of a very large cistern below the reception room. It used to provide water for the neighborhood and then a family bought the property and it only served them. It is really cool and the acoustics in it are amazing.
Here is a little history of Matera. Its history extends back 30,000 years and Matera has been continuously inhabited since the Paleolithic period when wooly mammoths still roamed and the ice age had just ended (15000 BC). Only two places, both in the Middle East have been inhabited longer. During the Bronze and Iron ages, tools were used to carve holes in the rock for houses, churches, and cemeteries. After WWII, residents still lived in caves with no modern facilities, medical, schools or factories. An article was written which called it the shame of Italy. Eventually the Italian government responded by evicting the residents from the caves and squalid living conditions.
We start our sightseeing by finding our way to the Chiesa of Santa Maria di Idris. This is an old Catholic Church (1106) that is carved into the rock. The small church has one room with frescoes dating back to the 12th century. A Madonna and Child altar dates to the 17th century. The crypt was separate but in the 19th century a passage was built between it and the church so we can visit it now. We are not allowed to take photos so if you want to see the inside of it, you will have to google it. The views from the Rock church are great and we can look over the Sassi (old areas of town). We can also look over the Gravina di Matera, a large ravine with a river through it. On the other side of the ravine, we can see caves that were once home to the earliest inhabitants of Matera well over 10,000 years ago.
The Piazza San Pietro Caveoso is right below the rock church and we head there next. Lots of stairs in this town. There is a church in this square and we take a peek inside. It is nice but not exquisite. We bought a 3 church ticket at the rock church, so we take a short walk to another cave church nearby, Santa Lucia alle Malve. This church dates back to the 8th century and is a great example of a Rupestrian (cave church). It has 13th century frescos (again no pictures) and was the Benedictines Order first foothold in Matera and used as a convent from the 1400’s. One interesting fresco depicts St Lucia holding a chalice with her eyes in it. I will have to dig deeper into the story behind that (maybe a saint for the blind??) After this, we wander around looking for a place to eat but are not finding anything open. We check a pasta restaurant that was supposed to open at 1730 but it is closed and shows no sign of life. We return again to it an hour later and it is still closed, so at this point we settle on a couple of focaccia sandwiches and some potato fritters before calling it a night as my feet hurt and Carols also from walking the uneven cobblestone streets. Tomorrow we plan to hike in the ravine park. Time for bed.
Expenses Train From Monopoli to Matera 18.60E 3 Church Ticket 16E Glass of Wine for Carol 6E Puccia and Potato Croquettes for Dinner 7.50E Wine, Cheese, olives, Bread from Market 16.73E La Dimora Di Cesare House 78.70E. Walked 10.0 Miles
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