Matera

We left Formia for a five-day road trip through Puglia, also known as Apulia. It's pretty special because, since Sarah lives here, she is the brains and muscle behind our trip. We're driving her car and she chose our destinations. I feel grateful to be able to visit her while she's here. 


Our first stop was Matera, an ancient city built into caves. Up until the 1950's, people lived in caves, kept livestock in caves, and built houses attached to the caves. In the 60's, Mussolini declared the city to be the shame of Italy, because of the cave dwelling, and he forced everyone out of the caves in an effort to 'modernize' the city. It was relatively unknown until 2002, when The Passion of Christ was filmed there, and all of a sudden, people started to care about the caves and the right to dwell in the caves. Now people are rehabbing and renovating the caves and sixty percent of them are inhabited, with private homes or hotels. 

It's a beautiful and unique city. Lots of old, slippery stones and lots of stairs. There's a conservatory and we saw lots of Italian school kids on field trips. We took a tuk tuk tour of the old city, which was a great way to see everything without a forced march for little legs.