Friday

 It’s another beautiful day today in Polignano a Mare. After caffè at Luna’s we set out for a road trip to Matera. It is about an hour and a half from Polignano a Mare. Matera is the 2nd oldest city in the world. It is also the location for the latest James Bond movie. Matera was known as the shame of Italy due to its level of poverty. Almost 25% of the population were cave dwellers. The sassi, which means rock in Italian, has been around for 7-10,000 years way BC. There were more than 16,000 people living in caves in the mountain side. In the 1950s the entire population of  cave dwellers, mostly peasants and farmers were relocated from the caves due to poor living conditions. Now thanks to UNESCO, the caves and walkways are being renovated and made safe for tourists. Steve was doing a great job of driving around in Matera until he turned down a street that ended at the Police station. A man asked, are you American? What are you looking for? We said the sassi. He offered us for $15 each a 2 hour tour. Follow my friend and he will take you to a place to park your car and tour you around the sassi. 

We asked how far it was he said 200 meters. We agreed. The whole time we were walking downhill, I thought, where is he taking us? When he hadn’t robbed us and left us for dead, I thought we have been walking down here for a really long time. How will we ever get back to where we parked our car? Then we turned into an alleyway. We saw this…

Looking back at these pictures, they really don’t do the scenery justice!

Our guide Gianpaul.

Then we were able to go inside some of the caves. They were dark, dreary, and very stuffy. The animals slept in the caves with the family. I guess they had to get used to that smell. 

They had a cave “museum” with period furniture and tools.

Next we saw the church. Every neighborhood has a church. Even cave dwellers! This one is located right at the end of the rows of cave dwellings. The piazza in front of the church is where James Bond drove in circles. GianPaul said they flooded the whole piazza with Cocoa Cola so the car could spin easily. 

Inside the church

Views from the piazza.

Now to get back up to our car. It was quite a long steep walk back to where we started. It was well worth the hike!

We had a nice lunch at il Terrazzino. It had a panoramic view of Matera. 

We left Matera for our journey home. We saw beautiful country side. They have taken advantage of the windy open areas and have built wind mills. They are enormous. It is a sign of the times. Technology meets the farmland even in Italy.

Our next stop was Mottola. It had just rained so there was a beautiful double rainbow…what does it mean?

We are back to our house. It was a very full day so we decided to get take out from Pescaria of octopus and tuna sandwiches and pizza to eat in tonight. We played a round of 5 Crowns and called it a night! Finally a Pope beat the Castles!