Disappointment (Matera)

To continue my theme of tourists who are unaware of anyone but themselves, we encountered two more, dear reader, not one minute from our front door. Matera, as you may have gleaned from the photos, is a series of walkways and stairs. You can't go very far without negotiating stairs. We closed our front gate and turned to walk up the stairs to the main thoroughfare to find the only passage partially blocked by a woman in the middle of the path and her large, geriatric husband, seated occupying the stairs. Neither made an attempt to move. Arrogance.

The photos in this post are ones I grabbed wandering the Sassi today. No churches were included. I think you've seen enough for a while. Until Monday's meanderings at least.

Our balcony from below.

After last night's dinner, we decided we would eat in tonight, provided we could source some fresh bread rolls, tomatoes and some cold meat. That shouldn't have been too difficult - it was Sunday and the produce markets were supposed to be happening.

Matera bread and cruschi peppers.

We had breakfast at Café Ghavè again, the only variation was the food. My croissant had poppy seeds through it. Weird. Jayne had some pistachio pastry creation. I wasn't keen to brave the main piazza because we could hear the noise from our balcony. Yesterday Silvio said that Sunday was the most crowded day in Matera. 

How right he was. The piazza was a heaving, seething mass of tour groups; flagsticks were being waved in all directions. The produce market I had hoped for was just an extension of the arts, crafts and curios market that was there yesterday morning.

They have their own bell tower.

The first bakery proved fruitless as it was selling pre-made rolls and focaccia Matera. Time to go to the mini-market if we could fight our way through the crowds arriving in the square. The mini-market also proved a waste of time. The fruit and veg section had been decimated. There was one lonely tomato on the shelf and it had been left behind for a reason. A local man looked at me and shrugged, waved his hand at the empty shelves and shuffled out the door. We followed.

Back to my notes to locate the other supermarket. It was outside of the Sassi, a five minute walk. Braving the traffic, mostly a line of cars with exception of a man riding his horse, and the constant surge of tour groups, we made it to the SpeSi only to find a similar scene. Very little fruit or veg and not a ripe tomato in sight.

The real bell tower is visible from just about everywhere.

We returned to the Sassi and discovered there was another SpeSi near the Franciscan church. It was deceptively large given the narrow entry. That was hopeful. The empty deli display fridges were not. Around the corner to the fruit and veg. Supermarket number 3 ... no deal. What gives? It is unItalian not to be able to buy ripe tomatoes.

Change of plans. We would have lunch out and snack on our cheese and other things tonight on the balcony. I needed to make certain that I knew the way back to the bus terminal in case we decided to walk there on Tuesday morning. My memory proved to be accurate and we were once again outside in the modern town of Matera, away from the hordes of tour groups.

As we walked down the street, a woman walked past in the other direction with groceries. Ok, one last shot. The next SpeSi was only five minutes away. Off we went. There was the usual queue inside with only one person on the checkout. No problem, I'd queue for fresh tomatoes and mortadella. Except there were no tomatoes. I was defeated.

And I mean everywhere.

The walk to the bus station is achievable. It is 2.2 km but mostly downhill, so we'll see how we feel on Tuesday. A taxi might still be an option, but our experience in Lecce still looms large in our memories.

After a brief interlude at home, we walked once again to the mini-mart to buy some wine. The crowds in the piazza had dissipated somewhat, one assumes they were exploring other parts of the Sassi. There was a pharmacy across the road and we stopped in, without expectation, to see if we could get a compression sleeve for my left arm. I injured it some time back and dragging bags and throwing them up into luggage racks on trains hasn't allowed time for it improve. Bonus. They had what I needed.

Then we returned to our little piazza where the locals hang out, and the tour groups don't, to enjoy a beer and lunch, before returning to the apartment.

Monday

I know you're probably reading about the riots in Paris, but there have also been riots in Milan and Bologna (and since I wrote this, Roma and Turin) that failed to tweak the interest of the Australian media. The root cause is different but the end result was the same. I sometimes wonder why in Australia we just accept the tyranny of government, with our ever decreasing civil rights. 

A church on the main piazza.

Anyway, today is our last full day in Matera. We can tell the crowds are down because we get a good sense of the numbers in the piazza from the noise on the viewing balcony. Our usual café was closed this morning so we ambled down the towards the piazza and stopped where we had lunch and birra the first day we were here. The coffee and croissants were as good.

The rock church on a rock.

Our major excursion today is to the Chiesa di Santa Maria d'Idris. A rupestrian church carved into a rock outcrop on the edge of the Sassi and therefore the edge of the gorge. Jayne was a bit circumspect about the number of the stairs to be negotiated. As our planned route passed the Palombaro Lungo, the massive underground cistern, we thought we'd stop there on the way. Except a tour group, numbering around 40 people, was queued up to enter. Perhaps on the way back.

We followed the path suggested by Google which stayed on the main thoroughfare for most of the walk, until it deviated onto side streets, read stairways, and wended its way down to the base of the climb to church. Which happened to be on the main road. Why the complex detour? Who knows. 

Chiesa di Santa Maria d'Idris is considered the Sistine Chapel of Rupestrian churches. I'm not sure if that label is tongue in cheek, but the Sistine Chapel it is not. Aside from the fact that there were very few people there, it is two rock churches joined together and has several frescoes and part frescoes on the walls and ceiling. Most are from the 17th century but some date back as far as the 8th century.

The view from the rock is quite impressive out across the gorge and back up the Sassi. There are many caves on the other side of the gorge, but I am uncertain how they managed to get the mined stone back across to this side.

On the way home, we stopped at the larger SpeSi supermarket to once again be disappointed. The fruit and veg shelves were yet to be restocked. We were served by a very hostile woman at the counter and once again headed for the Palombaro Lungo. This time there was a school group lining the stairs and the entrance, so that will now be an afternoon activity. I'm not sure how large the space inside may be, but I'm sure I don't wish to share it with 40 or so school students. Those days are over.

Those experiences, particularly the lack of tomatoes, again, inspired today's title song Disappointment by The Cranberries.

Alora, it is lunch again today and wine and cheese for dinner. Back to the main piazza to a bistro that had a wide menu, probably too wide. Do you trust a kitchen that boasts it can turn out 50 dishes? I don't. We looked at a couple of other options but not being European, we didn't push past people to snare a table. 

By this stage I wanted a seat in the sun, so it was back to our piazza to see if there tables available at Nocelleria. The sign says panini and birra, not a bad start but I didn't really want a sandwich for lunch. Their menu was more expansive. We scored a table in sun/part shade. We selected Cialledda, a Materan dish of tomatoes, cucumber, red onion and Matera bread liberally doused in olive oil and sprinkled with oregano. Followed by cannelloni alle carne.

A statue dedicated to man-spreading.

We asked to share and they served the Cialledda in two bowls for us and we cut the cannelloni ourselves. And a local craft beer, alla spina, of course. It was, without a doubt, the simplest meal we have had in Matera and also the best. Less than half the price we have paid for meals at two other restaurants. Italian food, done simply, wins every time. It was delightful sitting in the sun watching the passing parade and revelling in the quieter piazza.

Finally we visited the church that is the feature of our piazza. I didn't have my camera and although it is a lovely little church, there was nothing inside that would call me back for a photo opportunity. It is very dark, consistent with the Romanesque style, lots of columns with an arched interior. Originally built in the 1200s and then rebuilt in the 1600s after it fell into disuse.

After the Palombaro Lungo reopened, we thought we should pay it a visit. I mean the lines to get in must say something ... yeah, nah. What the lines say is that people have no discernment or are easily manipulated. I'm sure the 'cistern' an Italian term, is a magnificent feat of engineering, joining all those caves together to be a massive water storage tank.

It's big, no doubt about it.

You could film Lord of The Rings in here.

When all is said and done, it is a massive, man made hole in the ground that holds water and once had drop points where people could collect water. Today it is barely filled and there is a metal walkway across the water to an endpoint of the chamber where you can climb a staircase again to another chamber, this one empty. Then you take the stairs back from whence you came, marvel at the idiots who have thrown coins into the water and retrace your steps to the surface. Being careful not bump into people taking selfies. It's like Cronulla in a lot of ways, one road in and one road... no you can draw your own analogies.

There's a lot of coin in there.

My final outing for the day was to return to the main piazza for 'blue light' photos of the Sassi back towards the cathedral. I'm sure I mentioned it before but it is the 30 minutes after sunset. The earth's shadow rises with the night and the lights of the Sassi come on. All very pretty if you can tolerate the pushing and shoving for position on the balcony.

Just after sunset.

The light is going.

Going.

Not quite gone.

Lights are on, home time.

Rather than initiate hand to hand combat, I ventured down stairs to the rock church. The lack of height does make a difference, but it was much calmer down there. Later I braved the melee of selfie takers up stairs. The busker tonight was a clarinet player. Curiously it matters not who is playing, guitar, clarinet, whatever, the repertoire is the same. If I hear My Way again any time soon I could self-immolate.

From the balcony.

And good night.

And that is pretty much a wrap from Matera. Tomorrow we have a very long transit to Sorrento.

Alla prossima.

Love Is All Around (Matera)

I shall commence this post, dear reader, by mentioning some of the more 'stupid tourist' behaviour we have witnessed. An example occurred this afternoon when we were sitting on our balcony, enjoying the afternoon Matera sun and a local rosé, drinking responsibly of course. I looked down and saw an older lady (no judgement) being walked down the piazza by a very large, muscled, much younger man. As a judgement formed in my mind, he bid her farewell and turned back towards the osteria from which they had both come. She thanked him loudly enough for me to identify her nationality (no, dear reader, apply your own prejudice) and she staggered off down the narrow street, almost bouncing from one building to another. Seriously. We thought she would fall. It is important to be a good representative of your country when you travel.

Continuing that theme, two men walked out of a church behind us. One commented, "I thought you'd gone in to pray." His friend replied, "I didn't know it was a church." Presumably they had just followed the crowd, and neither knew what they were going to see. I have an idea, let's travel half way across this flat earth and end up in place we know nothing about and blindly follow the crowd.

Also, in places not Matera, we watched an elderly man attempt to open a clearly locked and bolted castle door. Why? Well, some people want to see what they don't want to pay for. That is a recurring theme and spans international boundaries. In another example, a man begged the attendant to let him in to the church without paying just to take a few photographs. Happily the answer was no. And on another guided tour of a building, one guy pushed the button on every lamp he passed to see if it would light up. FFS.

The church shares the piazza with Café Ghavè.

Breakfast this morning, and probably the mornings following, was at the Café Ghavè, just up a few stairs in the nearest piazza. The coffee was very good and the pastry of choice, croissant, so named, really cornetto, was excellent. Probably the best I've had since we've been travelling. The best thing is the tour groups don't come this far up Via Baggio in the mornings so we literally had the place to ourselves.

We had the morning at leisure because our Get Your Guide walk had been postponed from 10:00am till 1:15pm. It seems that pricey, individual tours can't compete with mass groups. Sigh. Anyway we decided to do what we often do and just walk for a while. Jayne opted for the Cathedral, a quintessential sight on the Matera skyline.

Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi.

Ignoring the fascist architecture of some of the government buildings, we arrived, en route to the Duomo, at the church of San Francesco d'Assisi. Like many Catholic churches, it commands a dominating spot over the surrounding community. 

A Roggi sculpture.

There is a fascinating sculpture in this piazza, and several others that are scattered around the top of the gorge, by artist Andrea Roggi. Basically they incorporate human figures, an olive tree (the tree of life) and the world to show that everything is intertwined and one grows from the other. It is a pity that the billionaires who run the media, social media and tech companies don't understand the concept as the planet continues to warm and the impacts of climate change become more dire.

The Roggi at the Cathedral.

The Cathedral (Il Duomo) has a museum to walk through before entering the church itself. There were the usual items on display, religious art works, recovered frescoes, expensive chalices and a very weird sculpture of Jesus on the cross. It is a depiction I have never seen previously. 

Please explain.

We then entered the cathedral proper, past a massive nativity scene. Larger than life. It needed dusting.

Big, but dusty.

The cathedral is richly adorned in gold, again with multiple side altars and a false ceiling that have been added on in different eras since it was originally constructed in the 13th century.  And more gold.

A side altar with lots of marble.

The ceiling looking towards the back of the Cathedral.

A section of the ceiling.

The main altar.

Back at the apartment, we attended to more domestic duties (yes, Andy, more washing) before we ventured out to meet Silvio, our guide for the afternoon walking tour. 

The Cathedral has a rather unassuming façade.

He arrived late, admitting to having just come from a coffee with colleagues. Anyway, we told him we had already visited the Duomo and presumably he then adjusted our tour, starting off with a visit to a Sassi church that lies under the Piazza Vittorio Veneto. Here he began to tell the story of the Sassi (the stones) and how people literally carved out a life in Matera over centuries. The Sassi are in fact in two halves, the Sassi Barisano (the rich part) and the Sassi Caveoso (the poor part).

Il Duomo from a distance.

The caves are not natural but have been excavated to provide limestone blocks to construct buildings in the richer part of town while also creating caves in the poorer part. The caves stored various things as well as people and their livestock. Initially the Cathedral was constructed along with battlement walls and then residences/palazzi were built within the fortifications until they had to expand. Utilising existing terraced levels of the hillsides that form the river ravine, they built outwards and excavated more caves lower down for the underclass. The palazzi for the ruling class were built on high and the limestone panorama of the Sassi was created. A typical hierarchy, the rich on top of the poor.

There is very little space not utilised.

On the tour, we saw various vantage points to understand the nature of the overall development from top to bottom but we also entered preserved caves to see what the living conditions were like. Families with maybe 6 or more children lived in carved out rooms, along with their livestock, with no sanitation and little ventilation or lighting. Sounds inviting doesn't it?

Where the animals slept.

The bedroom adjoining the animal's space.

The 'master' bedroom was only a few steps away from where the animals slept. Do cattle snore? In the next chamber was the 'manure room'. That does not bear thinking about.

The manure room.

The town developed a system of water cisterns to store precious water but the capacity to ensure its quality was limited and mortality rates were shockingly high.

Water into the cave dwelling.

An external cistern (well).

It took until the 1950's for the government to take notice of the Sassi. It was declared the "shame of Italy". Subsequently the inhabitants were moved out into government housing in the modern Matera and provided with social and economic assistance to re-establish their lives. The government then acquired the precinct and started to restore its districts. 

Restoration has stalled here.

A UNESCO world heritage listing was bestowed in the 1990's. A true rags to riches story. Today, only about 2,000 people actually live in the Sassi - the rest of the restored accommodation, leased from the government, provides temporary stay apartments and hotels (some ridiculously expensive) for tourists, like us.

The Church of St Mary of Idris.

As a part of our walking tour, we also entered the Rupestrian Church Santa Lucia alla Malve. There are too many churches to count in Matera, both Rupestrian and more main stream. There are over 150 of the rock hewn churches alone. Many are still able to be seen and it is amazing that the ancient frescoes still survive in one form or another. Some have been destroyed, others preserved, some painted over with newer frescoes.

The oldest fresco in Matera.

The church we visited was at one point a convent, then a private house and is now a museum. Its roof, not ceiling, is the site of an older cemetery where the graves were carved into the rock.

Former grave sites.

We also happened upon another cat protection area. I do not understand this. Perhaps it's my Australian upbringing where cats are responsible for the destruction and devastation of so much local wildlife. Anyway, we found a cat, just chilling in an olive tree. Not something you see every day. Even our guide was captivated, taking photos and video.

It doesn't look comfortable to me.

Another church, yes, I know, was the Chiesa del Purgatoria. Great name. It had more skulls on the door than a pirate convention. Interestingly, the façade is shaped like a Bishop's hat. Now what does that say about power? This church was where you paid to have the religious pray to get your deceased loved ones out of purgatory more quickly

The Bishop's hat façade.

Such a welcoming door.

We also visited the Church of Saint Chiara which also contained another weirdly graphic interpretation of the Christ on the cross. Another battered version of the body and unusually, the nails were in the wrists and not the hands. I'm aware of an American TV program that suggested Christ could not have been nailed through the hands because the bones were not strong enough to support the weight of the body. However, their headline grabbing show did not account for the fact that legend says his feet were affixed as well, taking the weight of the body above. I wonder when this stature was sculpted. We couldn't find any information about it.

After the tour, it was aperitivo hour so we wended our way back to our sunny balcony to watch the vista and get ready for our dinner tonight - about 30 steps away from our front door.

Dinner was, hmmm, not worth the money, is the expression I was looking for. It is a well known restaurant. Jayne delighted in the number of stairs she had to descend to reach our table. It is cave country. Every waiter, no women, was wired for sound and the food came out quickly. Everything seemed to be such a rush, it was difficult to feel relaxed. This is not what the south of Italy is about, but Matera is an area for tourists - well the old town is. Tonight though, we were surrounded by people speaking Italian. Regardless, I felt the cave dining experience was more important than the food or the feel of the place.

The famed Matera bread baked by Dr Frankenstein.

Looking forward to hitting the produce markets tomorrow morning and acquiring supplies to enjoy happy meals (not that sort) at our accommodation.

Today's title you ask? You can't see my obscure segue, dear reader? The Troggs, a 60s English band, were originally called the Troglodytes. It is a Latin word that means cave dweller and was used to describe colonies in France. The Italians adopted the term 'sassi' which means stones. Both colonies began in the same way, mining stone for the rich people to build their castles. 

Anyway, who needs an excuse to enjoy a classic song from the 60s? Not a remake for a Hollywood movie. Enjoy Love Is All Around.

Alla prossima.