Thursday, September 26, 2024

I was awakened by the German Shepard in the courtyard below barking. There is no grass or outdoor spaces on the houses so he is just in tiled courtyard. The tile means that the barks each echo…wow.

We got back on the road with headed to Matera. The town dates back to 10,000 BC and people have been living caves the whole time.

We ate lunch at Lucany. The restaurant is in cave that used to be three levels for wine making and storage. First level for crushing grapes, then fermentation tanks on the second level (down) and then finally they stored barrels at the bottom on the third level. The whole thing has been converted into a restaurant from when it was part of a larger house.

From there we went to explore the town. It was unexpected how much there was. The city was built as a series of caves that expanded and expanded. We checked out small museum that we wander that had caves and cisterns that you could walk through. They carved the cisterns out of the rock and captured rain water. There was not water to have other wise apart from the river in the ravine.

After that we went to the Rock Church. We saw the frescos of the church in a cave (you may notice a theme).

There a lot of rock churches. While interesting it pretty quick to see because most of the fracos have been damaged over time and the rooms are small but it was still cool to see.

The cave dwellings were emptied in second half of the 20th century as the Italian government decided that the living conditions and poor sanitation were not acceptable. We visited one of the museums that showed the rooms in the cave. Normally they were one to two rooms and the family (usually 8+) and animals lived together in the room. The one that we visited had a second room where the pigs, chickens and such would have been. The mule stayed in the main room and provided heat. It was tight but interesting. Often they were over a cistern where they could pull water from. The city had no natural water sources so rainwater collection was key.

Walking around the city is interesting because of all the winding paths and seemingly interesting views around every corner. The cave dwellings have been and are being rehabilitated with plumbing and modern convinces but many are still abandoned.

After more Gelato, we checked into our hotel Locanda di San Martino – you guessed it – the room was a cave.

We enjoyed walking around the city more and got dinner at Annina 1937 which is – you will never guess – in cave!

After dinner we called it a night but not before one last view of the city at night.