Our new favorite city -- Matera!!

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Oh boy! I find myself (almost) speechless – we are now in Matera. One of our guidebooks says: It is unique. No kidding! We didn’t have the best of maps, but we actually found our way with no problem! Wound down and down into the valley; sassi on either side of us. (Sassi are the caves in the town that have been inhabited – mostly by the very poor – for centuries, some of which have now been converted into hotels.) Drove right past our hotel – (was on R’s side…obviously he wasn’t paying attention…) – found a real parking space, pulled in and walked back – and voila, here we are, the Locanda di San Martino. Lovely people, amazing place! We are just about at the top of the hotel – Room 23. If you want to see more pictures, other than ours, goggle Locanda di San Martino and find our cave! It’s just like that – really beautiful, and, what’s more, WARM! First time we’ve been really warm since we left Rome!!

Looked over our room, then went back and got luggage – lots of odd steps and stairs to get over, but whew, now that we’re here…(R outside right now, as a matter of fact, marking our location on Rosy (our GPS), so we can find our way back here!) (Note to Mom and Laura: Talk about steps to fall over and down; I’m keeping a hand on R at all times when we’re out, in the hope that WHEN I fall (not IF, notice!) that he’ll be there to pick me up!! Unless I bring him down too… Also, they tell us there is a laundromat in town, which we will find first thing tomorrow!! YEA!!!

Okay – back from our stroll – and we really, truly love this place! Up quite a flight of stairs from our hotel, we walk directly into Matera’s main town square. Huge, beautiful, clean – sparkling fountain – had a nice sit down at a café. R had red wine, I had coca-cola. Then proceeded to passagiata – and an interesting thing! Apparently this town is open from 9 – 1 and then closes down until 4:30 or 5! All the shops and services! We did make it into a couple of the churches – just beautiful! And tomorrow (after laundry!) we’re going to do a complete walking circle of the town; lots of steps, R definitely is NOT looking forward to it! After our walk, returned to the hotel for a bit of a rest up for dinner. Have decided on a local place, down (of course) with a good-looking menu. Poor R must be FAMISHED, as this is yet another day he went without lunch! (Although he did make short work of the nuts and olives that came with his wine and my coke!)

It really was a driving sort of day – driving the car AND driving rain! It poured for most of our journey – and the photos that we took at Aeclanum (on the east side of Benevento) shows just how wet it was! Did, again, have the place to ourselves, so that was nice. (Also, note to either LLBean or Orvis – those pricey umbrellas I ordered are TERRIBLE and I’m ONLY bringing them back to the U.S. to send them BACK to you! We would have done better with a 3 Euro special!!!) At any rate, left Capua and the Hotel Capys around 8:30. R found a shorter route around Benevento, and we got to Aeclanum around 10:30 am. From there we headed to Melfi, then Venoso, where we were of course too late for the Abbey to be open. Fortunately, it’s a ruin, so there was lots to see from the outside, and I don’t think we have to make a special trip back there.

From there we put pedal to the metal and headed to Matera, with an interesting detour along the Appian Way, which is in total disarray with construction! What a mess they’ve made! (Oh yes! The train…we were pulling into Puglia, and the train signals were down; we were #2 in line, behind a large truck…and we waited, and we waited … after about 10 minutes, finally, a 2 car train went chugging slowly past! And that was it! But the signals were still going; nothing else happening! Finally, a truck on the other side of the tracks decided to drive around the barrier … needless to say, I was the first on our side over the center median to the other side of the road … with everyone else following me to get by! I’m sure it’s still clanging, and it’s even possible that the truck in front of us is still waiting!!)

In all, including our stop at Aeclanum, it took us about 6 ½ hours to get here. And, hopefully, we’ve found better weather, as so far (knock wood!) there has been some blue sky to greet us!

More later, after dinner!
Much love,
m