Friday April 21, 2023
We enjoy our toast and coffee for breakfast. Cesare the owner had fresh ground coffee available for us and we are taking advantage of it. Italian coffee is sooo good. Now the rest of our hiking saga. I had looked at the map and to walk around to the other side of the ravine by road is 10 miles round trip before any hiking so we had decided yesterday, it was not meant to be. However last evening, when walking around we saw some people coming up the trail and so we watched them from above. They went to the locked gate and climbed over it. We saw another couple do the same and then discovered that Gwen had done this yesterday and walked part way down. So this morning, we are going back.
We walk down steps and paths from the Duomo to near where the trail is and as we get close, there are two police people walking the street towards the trail. We slow down, not wanting to climb the gate in front of them. Halfway to the trailhead, they turn around. Very good for us as we are still not sure if it is legal to jump the gate. We reach it and I go over first. There are two good footholds one lower where a latch is and one higher where it is locked. The most difficult part is pivoting on top to get your foot back onto the top lock mechanism. We both complete our B and E into the park and down the trail we go. It is fairly steep and rugged in places going down but we still reach the bottom of the gorge in about 20 minutes.
Next the suspension bridge. Obligatory pictures on the swaying bridge and then we work our way all the way across the river. The trail up the other side is a nice gentle grade and switchbacks help even more. Before the top we reach some of the caves and explore a few. They are not super deep but you can see some signs of habitation such as shelf areas dug into the rock and black ceiling where the fire was. Surprisingly to us, there are no pictographs or carvings on the walls even though they were occupied for thousands of years beginning over 9000 years ago. Near the top we find a cave church. It has a metal bar gate to protect it from idiots, but we can see inside and a few frescoes. We get to the top with amazing views back to Matera.
We find another path and walk it below the rim. On the return we find another cave church with even nicer frescoes and three naves. We are enjoying our time walking in this ancient place. We see a whole other section of town across the ravine that we have yet to walk so it could be on this afternoons itinerary. Eventually, we start our return journey down, cross the bridge, and decide to walk along the river and maybe find another cave church on a hill on this side. We run into a family that tells us to be careful, they just came across some wild boar and a mother with piglets that were drinking in the river. We head on and start to see plenty of boar tracks. A short bit later and we are thwarted. Not by wild boar but by the river as the trail we saw from up above that looked continuous actually crosses the river here. I carefully use some stepping stones to get about 75% across but the rest of the way which includes a cracked board does not look safe. We contemplate taking off our shoes and wading but decide it is probably not worth it so reluctantly turn around. Before we know it we have reached the gate and do our gate climb shuffle. At the top an Italian lady who was watching us, claps her hands and says bravissimo. We both are just happy we got to do this after yesterdays letdown. And I almost forgot to mention the multitude of beautiful flowers blooming along the trek.
We go back to our place for another nice relaxing patio lunch of cheese, toast, olives and you guessed it, the rest of our wine. After hanging a bit we join Dave and Gwen to explore the Sassi Caveoso, the oldest part of the city that we had seen from the other side. Along the way we stopped for some excellent gelato, best pistachio I think I have had. Back to the Sassi Caveoso.
This was the area where people were still living in the walled in caves with their animals and no facilities when the Shame of Italy article came out. In the late 1950s, the government took action by relocating the cave dwellers to government housing and the caves lay empty for years. Based on our walk many are still empty, some doorways walled in some open. In the 1980s, the government gave businessmen the opportunity to rent the caves for a low fee if they turned them into tourist businesses. Many are now liveable and have been turned into hotels or apartments for rent. What is described as many did not match one area we walked which is still mostly unoccupied. We wander next to the Castello in town where you can just walk around the exterior. After that we see if the pasta restaurant we tried to go to the first night is open but it is not however the exterior doors are open indicating it should open later.
We hang in the San Francisco church piazza nearby and Dave and Gwen go to the local market and surprise us with a bottle of wine to share in the square. By the time we finish, Carol takes the short walk to see if the restaurant is open and returns with the two thumbs up sign. We head over and get seated. It turns out it is a one man show, all different kinds of homemade pastas, 4 sauces to choose from, some appetizers to choose from also. He takes our order and goes int the glass enclosed kitchen to make our food. I get a sage and butter sauce, Carol chooses eggplant and smoked cheese as the sauce and we share the deliciousness with only water tonight as we have had enough wine for the day (or so we convince ourselves). The nice thing is it opened at 1830 and we were done at 2015 watching him start to shut down. He is only open two hours served about 16 people and then closes. He is also open a few hours for lunch. At any rate it was simple and good and we can go back to our place, pack for tomorrow and relax. Matera has been good to us. Expenses Gelato at Vizi Degli Angeli 7E Dinner at Kapunto (no wine) 30E La Dimora Di Cesare 78.70E Walked 9.3 Miles
How nice to have friends traveling with you for a time.