Matera, Italy

This weekend (Friday until Monday) I went on my last major trip with my instructor and most of my class. Matera is located in southern Italy, next to the heel. We had gorgeous and hot weather almost the entire time. This place was amazingly beautiful. It's what one would imagine Italy to look like. It is very quiet in most of this city. We jammed packed so much into the weekend... Fun fact: Passion of the Christ was filmed here.

 

 On the wall of our patio in the hotel, overlooking the caves across the canyon.

 

This town is interesting because the homes (sassi) are carved into the rock, and are refaced in the front with stones. We discovered a cave which was overgrown, and stumbled into the complete darkness. It used to be a church.

 

These caves were the first homes of neolithic inhabitants of this region.

 

Structures built into the rock next to the cliff. That structure on the top  right of this photo is a church built into a huge boulder. It was incredible!

 

On Saturday we climbed down the ravine (la gravina), crossed the stream, then climbed up the neighboring mountain to explore the caves. It was an intense hike in the hot sun and it was definitely my favorite thing that we did the whole weekend. The whole hill smelled of oregano and wild mint. I pulled some out the the ground and brought it back to Rome and it was the best I ever tasted. There were lizards, snakes and frogs everywhere. A kid almost got attacked by a scorpion!

This is a church carved into the rock. Inside we found a cow trying to seek shade. The cattle roam free here, and so do their feces.

 

Taking a quick break in a cave at the top of the mountain.

 

Inside some of the caves were eroded religious frescoes. These used to be Byzantine churches. A lot of people carved their names into these religious icons which was unfortunate but also interesting...

 

On top of the mountain!

 

Picturesque from every angle.

 

The next day we went to Castle del Monte. Unfortunately I forgot my camera on the bus, but the important thing to know is that I caught a really cute lizard. The castle was also pretty cool. It was built in the 12th century by Frederick the Second on some hill in the middle of nowhere, Puglia.  

The little town in this photograph, Alberobello (beautiful tree) was where we got lunch. We were only there for an hour (It's just sandwiches and trinkets), but it was cool to see these homes built in this fashion of only limestone. It is a similar style to that of the Greeks, but apparently there was no influence.

 

Grotte di Castellana

The Castellana Caves, located in Bari, Puglia, was our next stop. It was a huge cave with many underground chambers. We had a guided tour, and the lady kept likening the stalagmites and stalactites to gelato, the Virgin Mary, and animals such as shewolfs, owls and jellyfish. Other than that, the cave was awesome, and it took us at least an hour and a half or two hours to walk through the whole thing. We weren't allowed to take pictures because of "copyright reasons," which meant we all took as many pictures as we wanted. After this we took a bus to a town called Ostuni, where we had dinner. We got back to our hotel in Matera at midnight. See? It was a jam packed weekend.