Monday October 10th
I was trying to think of the best way to describe Matera, and I came up with this analogy. Have you ever seen a dog that is so ugly it’s cute? That is Matera, or at least that is the Sassi, which is the part of town that tourists would come to see. The place is completely monochromatic and devoid of any fanciness. The houses are all dug out of the cliffs with small flat masonry facades. Unbelievably people still lived in these cave houses without electricity or running water until the 1950's. The government relocated the entire population, or else they might still be living here. The place is so bleak that it was used as the setting for some of the scenes in “The Passion of The Christ.”
A short drive over to Gravina in Puglia where we were supposed to see a church decorated with the neatly stacked bones. In order to photograph you had to have permission from the priest. We were taken to be “presented” to him and ask his permission, but he wasn’t in, and we have an impossibly long ride today, so we couldn’t wait around for him to come back.
So we set out on a due South course. We’re supposed to be in Sicilia tomorrow, so the wrist was pinned back with the throttle wide open. With only one stop between us and the toe of the boot we zoomed along almost the entire day.
Scala Coeli which means “Stairway to Heaven” was an interesting spot. I realized here that we can’t recommend every place we go. This place isn’t for everyone, it isn’t even for most people I would say. If you don’t speak any Italian I don’t think you’ll find any help at all, if you do speak Italian but you don’t understand the Calabrese accent you’ll have trouble. I’m sure that it isn’t this bad everywhere, but in the mountains, in a town full of older people, it was THICK. I understood about a 1/4 of what was said to me, but didn’t need to know any Italian to understand that the camera was the reason that people were coming out of the woodwork. It was an absolute trip to watch the men clamor together and try to get in the shot. My favorite was the group of men huddled around the trunk of a car drinking Grappa out of plastic cups. The locals apparently have a saying which is “If you want to go to Heaven, be sure to die in Scala Coeli.” I don’t know about all that, but the road to get there was beautiful, and if you should find yourself in this area it’s not a bad place to wander around.
We made it to the toe, but being in an urban area meant that there weren’t any agris to be had. Tomorrow we’ll board the boat for Sicilia. If you haven’t ever been here you might be surprised at how close it is to the mainland, I know I was. You could swim over if you really wanted to, but it’s easier just to take the ferry which runs 24 hours a day.