covering 25 - 27 April 2019
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| typical Basilicata landscape |
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| Matera from across the gorge |
We head
west into Basilicata aiming for Matera, a town famous for cave dwellings and
with the added attraction for us of a protected wild park area just to the
south. That’s where we head for and we
find a flower strewn landscape with a fine display of various orchids and lots
of people – it happens to be another mid-week public holiday. Between this wild landscape and the town is a
600 feet deep river gorge which means that from various viewpoints we get spectacular
panoramic views of the jumbled town in front of us. An area in front to our left is a mass of
abandoned cave houses while above it the town climbs and we can see the top of
the cathedral on the ridge. It really is
quite a sight. The caves were notorious
slums (no running water but probably running sewage) and there’s a strange
attitude towards them. On the one hand, there’s a sort of pride that the town
is famous for them while at the same time they are mostly abandoned as a sort
of hidden secret. They’re certainly not
all turned into Airbnbs or ‘Bijou’ apartments or ‘Boutique’ Hotels, whatever
they are.
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| Yellow Ophrys |
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and a particularly large Burnt -tip Orchid
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Our
campsite here is more of a car park with just tarmac to settle on and is about
four miles out of town. Giancarlo, the
lively Italian running it is full of energy and wants to explain everything in
the minutest detail in his good English.
His talk on the merits of his town accompanied by tips, where to go and
where not to go appears to take the best part of half an hour judging by how
long other people spend in the office with him.
So when I wandered over for a map and he suggested it would be best if
my wife was with me, I lied and said she was resting. “All I want is a map”, I said. “What time you going in ?”, he
countered. “Don’t know”. Anyway I had to explain quickly because I
wasn’t going to sit through half an hour of chat, so I said that we did not
plan, we explored and were happily surprised by what we saw. That we don’t know how long we’re staying
anywhere until we decide to leave. “I
never meet anyone like you before, never”.
I took that as a compliment and was out of the office with my map inside
five minutes.
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a quick snack at the Cathedral
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Matera as seen from the Cathedral
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| a quick fag |
Giancarlo’s
site provides a minibus shuttle into town which was really good, especially
when we saw what parking was like. The
old town was an absolute delight but how anyone could give directions on how to
get anywhere is beyond me. The street
plan (plan !) was a sort of particularly untidy rat’s nest with twists and
turns and ups and downs everywhere. We
headed vaguely downhill to the edge of the gorge and then back up to the
cathedral which we eventually found. I
should have said that this is a City of Culture for 2019 which meant that the
cathedral had been scrubbed up to a blindingly light colour. There were also some rather desultorily
applied cement slopes on flights of stairs which we took to be ‘disabled
access’.
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that loaf isn't really half the size of
that woman- she's further away |
It may
seem odd but one of the highlights of this place for me was the absolutely
delicious if chewy Basilicata bread. The
loaf was shaped like a huge Cornish Pasty with the crimping uppermost, the
shape of a rugby ball but bigger with a dark brown crust and very open textured
inside. It was sold by weight and we
bought a half, sliced and it didn’t last very long.
Basilicata,
the second of the mainland regions we’re exploring is beautifully hilly and
green with astounding long distant views available at almost every turn, and
believe me on these roads there are a lot of turns to choose from. We drove across to the west coast along
country switchback roads with those views everywhere. One of the problems and we’ve had it before
in Italy is that there are very few places to stop except on the road. Laybys are rare and those we come across are
usually filthy with rubbish spilling out of black plastic bags. It is saying something but most are far worse
than even British laybys and Italy is second only to India I’d say. Just look across it is the only option.
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| just away from the crowds outside the Cathedral |
We
pulled onto one small camping site that had only one other motorhome on it, a
British one, five yards or so away from us.
It was late afternoon, we’d had a tiring day and we saw them once. That was it.
Then a third van turned up with an Italian man in it. Well, he whizzed round and introduced himself
and had a little chat. Now I cannot
fault that as an approach but it really didn’t seem very British. Then we wonder why as a nation we’re
considered unfriendly or stuck-up.
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| lunch stop in a rare fairly litter free place |
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| more Basilicata country |
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