Lecce to Matera

We woke early, had breakfast then headed out into the town early. It's always a good time to explore as all the tourists have disappeared, and we get images of the sites with no one in them! Which is the reason I went back and took yet another photo of the cathedral!

And he beautiful church with the green door - this time without beggars!

We wandered around the alleyways as Nikki wanted to see the castle. Once we had seen it, we just explored all over...

 Found a stray cat with beautiful green eyes...

And stumbled over another Roman Ampitheatre guarded by another stray cat...

Birding is hopeless in Italy, the only ones I've found are the Italiano Pidgeonata. I haven't even seen a sparrow!

 Lots of old interesting buildings...

Oh - and yet another church!

Hanging out the washing way up high on the balcony was seemingly the oldest resident of Lecce. She really played up to the tourists passing below taking her photograph, and waved to me!

As we left the light on the buildings was lovely...

I then drove to Matera with the toll roads avoided on the GPS because they are so expensive. It cost us 20 euro to drive from Naples to Bari. Avoiding the toll roads gives us interesting routes as well, away from the motoways on lesser country roads and far more scenic. (And cheaper!). And I'm not passed with cars hurtling down the next lane at 150kmh!!

Arriving... Matera took our breath away. Stunning beautiful, so old, 2000 years old. We found our Bed and Breakfast then the hostess took me up to park the car. As we walked back into the Sassi I found myself totally overwhelmed at the tremendous age of the city, and the story it holds.

Up until he 1950s, 20,000 people lived in the Sassi in very poor conditions. Infant mortality was 44%. The houses are carved into the limestone hills, so people were literally living in damp caves. A whole family would be in one room, which they would share with the animals, horses, pigs, chickens etc... A city of extreme poverty.

In the 1950s the government built a new city of apartments and farmers were relocated so their animals could be outside, and everyone was moved out. The city was dangerous, and closed. However, they recognised that the city was historic, and allowed people back in in the 80s, and it was declared a World Heritage site in 1993. These days people live and work in the Sassi, and it's visited by lots of tourists.

The Cathedral - Duomo (Remind me not visit another church!)

Alleyways like this are a pleasure to walk on.  I'm getting very fit walking up and down stairs!

We came to a photo exhibition (free), so went in, not for the photos but to see what the architecture of the cave looked like!  Remember - int he 1950s, a whole family would be living in this room complete with animals!

The Sassi is easy to navigate - one road completely encircles the hillside it's built into. A river runs to the east and there are caves dotted all over the the opposite hillside...

See the switchback paths? Nikki and I made plans to walk those!

 Caves at the top of the hillside...

If you enlarge the next photo, you will see ladders about halfway down the cliff.. that lead to more caves that people once lived in. At the top is a monastery...

You can see the buildings just built into the rock...

Our Bed and Breakfast in a 1500s converted monastery in a cave.  It's oppressively damp inside, but cool. We have a dehumidifier going which we empty morning and night..

We found a very cheap place - we had a cheese and meat platter between us and a glass of wine which came to 6 euros each. Not bad!! From there we had a view of the cathedral at sunset...

We have one more full day in Matera, then we head back to Amsterdam via Naples. I'm actually looking forward to staying off my feet for a few days! I'm finding the concrete hard!