Sassi

Having gotten our bearings, sort of, we drove out of Bari (Patra's sister city, I think) and on into the interior, stopping at Matera for a) purchase of an Italian USB modem (yes!), and b) a stop at the Pantaleone Azienda Agritouristico campground. The former entailed biding our time parked on the main drag of Matera until 4:30PM when the Wind store reopened after its 4-hour lunch break. The latter is (we hope) a typical Italian farm expanded to include a restaurant, hostel, and campground. The campground was actually fairly nice and reasonable, although the English spoken was pretty minimal. The restaurant had no menu--"cuisine traditionale." We were joined later by a pair of French RVs and then another from Spain. We spent the evening recovering from our voyage, but the next day we ventured back into Matera.

Modern-day Matera sits along a great limestone gorge in which people have been living, in caves, for some aeons. In 1952, the Italian government declared them unsafe and moved everyone to Matera, atop the gorge. The cave dwellings--Sassi--are now a World Heritage Site, many restored and an attraction of some note. Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ was filmed here, but we went to see Sassi anyway.

En route from Bari to Matera, we saw a number of these

interesting stone corballed structures out in the groves

The gorge and some of the dwellings

Across the gorge, mostly cattle nowadays



River at the bottom of the gorge



Interior of Casa Grotto, one of the restored family dwellings;

three rooms, actually; it looked pretty spacious to us; in

reality, Sassi was noted for its poverty and 50% infant

mortality rate; the plight of its residents was made known by

physician/writer Carlos Levi

The kitchen

Living area; common bowl from which food is served

One-car garage

More of the cave town

In there somewhere is St. Peter's church/cave

The campground Pantaleone Azienda Agritouristico; very
nice



Sassi/Matera is worth a stop on the way. If you have seen Cappadocia, however, you won't be impressed.