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Wednesday 3.1.18
Day trip and walking tour of Matera.

A: We were on the road early and had breakfast as the locals do- in the cafe with coffee and pastry (cornetto). Mick's new cough had taken a good firm grip, but there was no way we were going to miss Matera - a major destination in the area, as you will read below.

Today's trip was on another of the small local railways - the Ferrovia Appulo Lucane. It even has it's own station building, and has obviously been the recipient of significant EU funding. The trains too looked much newer than others we have used.

As we were about to board the Matera train Mick noticed that half the carriages had our destination on them, and half a different one. The train was uncoupled at Altamura and the rear section went off somewhere else. I felt like I was in a movie! We arrived and had a quick coffee in Matera, The cafe was clearly a good choice, as we heard the barista greeting "Doctor Sindaco" - a respectful greeting for the mayor.

We had booked our guide through a site called Get Your Guide - the same as we had used for Lecce. Once again we were the only two in the group. I suppose that accounts for the rather more expensive cost - 50 Euro each. We met our walking tour guide on time at 10- Dora- yet another excellent tour guide, and with excellent English. She had grown up in Matera but lived for some years in Milan. Her father tells stories of growing up here but not in the sassi- old homes carved out of the rocks which is what the town is now well known for. Her mother's family had lived in the sassi. The squalid state of existence of the "troglodytes" - cave dwellers - as they were known, was put under a spotlight in the book " Christ stopped at Eboli" by Carlo Levi, an Italian artist who had lived in the area during a period of internal exile during world was II. Thanks to this, in large measure, Matera became known as the "shame of Italy" due to the extreme conditions the people were living under. In 1952 there was a forced removal of the 15,000 sassi dwellers from their homes to new accommodation nearby. Even today, the majority of used sassi are owned by the government, and large sections are closed off, being unsafe. We were very much reminded of the experience of the 'black house ' dwellers of the Hebrides, when we heard these stories.

Dora mentioned her in- laws a few times because they did spend their childhood in the sassi. Her father in law can't believe that his old home is now a hotel, and he refuses to believe that anyone would pay up to a thousand Euro a night to live in one of the sassi.

Dora walked us around the old town, built centuries ago, and showed us the ugly new town built in the 1960's/ 70's. We of course had to walk down and back up steps that were uneven, with no handrails. She told us that life was very hard here with no power or running water, only the door and a window above it for ventilation, and freezing cold in winter. Some of the sassi have been renovated and people live in them. Dora told us she has friends who live in them but the cost is extremely high as the place has to be continually dried out. Clean air has to be filtered in as well.

She took us to a sasso (sasso is single and sassi is plural) called the Casa Grotta Di Vico Solitario.We had to wait as there were other tour groups lined up but it was worth it. It is hard to comprehend how on earth anyone could live in such a place. Cramped in a very small area, a family with possibly nine children would have lived. The infant mortality rate was 50%- much higher than the rest of the country and so this family could have had many other children who died. In the space the family would have also had chickens under the bed, which was elevated for this purpose as well as for warmth, a donkey, and a pig. There was a small room at the back for the straw and manure. Near the entrance was the kitchen, the fireplace and the channel for collecting rain water. The children slept either in the bed with their parents or on top of the small cabinet. One of Dora's uncles said that as a child he and his siblings had competed to sleep atop the manure pile, for warmth.

M: Matera is built on a ridge overlooking the deep gorge of the Gravina. It is claimed to be the third oldest continuously inhabited the world, and looking across the gorge to the far side, it is still possible to see some of the earliest caves, many of which were converted to 'rupestri' - cave chapels. There are excellent views across the town itself, and when caught by the sun, the honey coloured sandstone buildings, clustered one atop the other like a massive surrealist lego creation, create a wonderful vista. Perhaps an Escher drawing is a better example, as the distinction between roof and footpath soon becomes meaningless.

The town has often been used as a setting for films, particularly those with a biblical theme. The most recent of these was 'The Passion of the Christ', by Mel Gibson. Dora had an uncle in the hospitality trade who told of Mel's going off to serve at Latin Mass early every morning, then leaving lots of empty bottles behind the curtains of his room every night. What a tortured soul he must be.

Soon enough the tour came to an end. - 2 hours and forty rather than the promised 2 hours. Lunch was very much in order, and we particularly wanted to sample Matera's famous bread. Our first choice was closed, so we cast ourselves on chance and ended up in 'La Fedda Rossa' - the red slice, in dialect, a name for bruschetta. Anne had a bruschetta with prosciutto and buffala mozzarella, while I had a plate with pretty much the same ingredients in different proportions. Oh- and the bread was excellent. Crunchy. Crusty, and with a rich golden interior with great texture due to the use of durum wheat.

In casting care to the winds, we found ourselves caught in the gap between trains back to Bari, so decided to use the time to visit a display of Carlo Levi's art, and then another sasso called the Casa Noha . Step one went without a hitch, and we were able to see Levi's 1961 major work (15 metres long!) depicting life in the sassi as he had known it, as well as a good range of his other work, reflecting his changing techniques over the years. And to think that when I read his book, I had no idea he was an artist!

Step two - not so successful. We discovered that they were letting people in to the Casa in groups, and the next one was too late for us. So, we ambled through the streets to the station, killed a bit of time with a tea/coffee, and boarded the very full train back to Bari -- coughing most of the way. Sorry everyone.

On return we activated our well oiled "last night" routine in getting ready for the next day's departure. Bari to Naples by train at 0715.

Before closing, a question. Where does all the change go in Italy? No one ever has any. If you give someone a 10 Euro note for a 1.50 purchase it's as if you had spat in their coffee. A major task now is to make sure we always have a pocketful of change. Maybe that's what happens? If everyone does what we do, I guess there will be no change in the shops. Good night!