Magnificent Matera

For our last full day in Puglia, Pete convinced me to make the hour-and-a-half drive to Matera, west of Bari in the Basilicata region of Italy. I had it starred on my Google map ever since watching No Time to Die. After seeing the opening scenes where Bond races around this awesome city on his motorcycle, I looked up where it was filmed and made a mental note to get there one day. Apart from its Bond fame, I didn't know anything else about the city. I was so glad Pete insisted that we go! 

Matera and the surrounding mountains are full of sassi, which are cave dwellings that have been continuously inhabited since the Stone Age. They have evidence of people living there since 7000BC! Pete booked a tour so that we could visit some of the sassi that haven't yet been renovated and converted into modern houses, restaurants, and shops. We learned that Matera was known as "the shame of Italy" when it was discovered that people were living in filth and inhuman conditions well into the 1950s. At that time, most of the Sassi dwellers were forcibly evicted. Extreme poverty persisted into the 1980s when tourism began to take over. There is no sign of the people who lived with 15+ relatives and their animals in single-room caves, who married their relatives, and had as many as 25 children (most of whom did not survive infancy). The city continues to be excavated and renovated, and the noise of construction vehicles interrupted our tour guide on occasion. 

I thought the setting of the city was stunning and the area was much greener than the Bond movie depicted. We learned that the filming of the Bond movie shut the town down for 3 months, apparently infuriating American and Australian tourists. Businesses were amply compensated per our guide. 

Cave dwellings cut into the mountains on the other side of the valley. The acoustics allowed people to yell back and forth to each other to communicate.

Renovated buildings

With their primitive way of living, no part of their precious animals was wasted. Bones were used to hold up gutters and have survived longer than the rusted metal posts that were later employed. 

Staircase used in one of the motorcycle scenes

We toured a Sassi which is now a restaurant. 

Unbeknownst to me, Matera was the setting for a number of other movies. Ben Hur, Wonder Woman, and The Passion of Christ among others.

We worked up quite the appetite, but I was no match for my local cheese appetizer plate. 

After lunch we made our way to the Cathedral, no small feat in this labyrinth city! This was the setting of the incredible motorcycle jumping scene (they build a huge ramp for this purpose).

The interior of the Cathedral was striking! I couldn't stop staring at the painted ceilings. 

A maze of a place!

We found our way to the cave church at the top of the rock outcropping, which was tiny, but had really old preserved paintings on the walls. 

We took the scenic way home through the countryside passing fields and fields of flowering almond trees. 

Back in Monopoli, we set out to watch the setting sun and have our final dinner at a seafood place in town.