Puglia & Basilicata: Regions of Italy
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Discovering Alberobello's Trulli houses.
Alberobello & Matera
Italian 101: A few fascinating facts about OLIVE OIL. Harvested in November and December, it costs more to produce olive oil than wine in Italy. One olive tree provides 3-4 liters of oil. There are more than 750 olive cultivars so all olive oil doesn’t taste the same. If you see a harvest date or “best used by” date on the bottle it tells you it is high-quality oil. Thanks, Caterina, for the education.
Wednesday. April 25
Tour: Day 5
Amazing Alberobello
Gino hosts us for lunch at his gourmet shop Enoteca Tholos. Platters of antipasto and bottles of wine vie for space on the counter. Gino instructs us about what wine goes with particular cheeses and bites. We try the white wine with the olive oil and bread. Another wine pairs better with the cheese with chili jam. The Zinfandel is excellent with the cheese with an onion and garlic jam. And on it goes! The dessert wine and biscotti are a wonderful end. We drink some grappa to finish off this experience. Hmmm....an acquired taste, perhaps.
Touring a Trullo House
Seven to eight people lived in the cone-shaped, stone house that we tour. It had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and sitting area. The loft was for storage and for the bigger kids to sleep in. The floor dates back to the 1400s. About 1500 trulli houses still exist in Alberobello, dating from 500 to perhaps 5000 years ago. Some are private homes and some are now shops.
FREE TIME in Alberobello
We watch the Italians as they celebrate Liberation Day (liberation from the Nazis in WWII). We see (again) how the streets are the Italians’ living room. We saw it in Rome, Vieste and now here. Mark and I stop at a little tent where a couple is selling dried fichi (figs). I chat with them a bit and then buy a carton to share with the group on our bus ride to Matera.
Antipasti and wine with Gino...gourmet delights!
Delicious figs with an almond inside each one!
Liberation Day in Alberobello.
Matera
Marvelous Matera
Finding our way around Matera.
Italian 101: It’s only 11 a.m. Why can’t I have a cappuccino? 11 a.m. is the demarcation of morning. No more cappuccinos, though it’s perfectly acceptable to order your first gelato of the day! Oh, the information you can learn from a Rick Steves radio show!
We leave Puglia behind and enter the Basilicata region. Look at this town! It’s almost surreal: we feel as if we’ve stepped onto a movie set. (Well, Mel Gibson did film The Passion of the Christ in Matera.)
This stop is a laundry stop, too. You can have it done for you or do it yourself, like a few of us did by hanging items outside. Laundry, Italian style!
The balcony is an inviting place for an impromptu aperitivo with a few tourmates. We have some wine to drink that we bought at the autogrille stop.
We’re dining in a cave tonight at L'Arco where the playful chef absconds with my phone so he can take a selfie! He is another member of Caterina’s family on the road.
Let’s take a moment here to dive into the food on this trip. One word: Incredible! The pastas almost make you swoon! Have a taste of sausage and mushroom pasta, savory and rich. Take a bite of the frutti di mare pasta in white wine. Enjoy spaghetti alla carbonara, one of Rome’s specialties. Then comes grilled lamb chops or baked seabass encrusted in salt. Fresh ricotta and buffalo mozzarella. Olive oil so fresh, fruity, pungent and nutty. Pastries, like sfogliatelle, so flaky and tender even your tongue knows it’s on vacation! Buon Appetito! ALERT: Bring clothes that stretch!
Locanda Di San Martino, our cave hotel!
Eat a pastry a day, I say!
In a Sassi (cave) house the family and its animals co-habitated.
History Bite: Our guide, Cosmos, tells us that the lack of enough food for the large families living in these Sassi homes forced mothers to resort to opium tea. Made from poppies, it was given to babies when they were crying from hunger. It would put them to sleep so they’d miss a meal. Our guide is pretty certain he was given opium tea as a baby.
Thursday, April 26
Tour: Day 6
Before our tour of the marvels of Matera, we partake of a breakfast buffet that stretches over several tables. How can we be hungry after the feast last night? Well, how can we pass up all this deliciousness?
On our guided walk around Matera we learn that the town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the oldest inhabited towns in the world. It goes back 50-60,000 years. Some of the caves we look at in the distance date back 10,000 years.
The Sassi house we visit was evacuated in 1956 and once had 7-8 people living in it. By government decree all the cave homes were evacuated by the early 1960s, once the living conditions were exposed by Carlo Levi (an author exiled to the region). There was no plumbing, electricity or air circulation. Caterina's handout on Matera includes this quote:“No one has come to this land except as an enemy, a conqueror or a visitor devoid of understanding.” Carlo Levi
The Santa Lucia Alle Malve church has original frescoes on the walls dating from between the 11th and 17th centuries. Incredible that tourists are allowed inside to see these rare frescoes. (No photos allowed.)
As Cosmo guides us around the maze-like lanes of Matera and we view the amazing Sassi homes and landscape he also makes sure we have time to "Take a Coffee" as they say in Italy!
FREE TIME in MATERA
After seeing the sites of Matera with the group, we are on our own for lunch. Pat, Mark and I enjoy yet another fabulous meal. Pat's antipasto is a cheese and meat platter with burrata cheese. Cut into it and a river of cream runs out! Thank you, Pat, for sharing it with us!
We also visit the Matera archaeological museum. It has both a prehistoric collection and a Magna Graecia (Greater Greece) one. Pat, Mark and I walk through the displays that give us a glimpse of the long history of this area. Some of the Greek vases date back to the 5th and 6th century B.C.
Group Aperitivo
I could get used to this! Another gathering of our group to enjoy aperitivo. Caterina takes the opportunity to educate us about some of the foods spread before us. We all brought various delectables and wine. There are fresh fava beans that you can open and pop into your mouth, found at the market by Caterina. There are tasty treats from Gino's store. Cheeses, salami, fresh berries, crusty bread. An array of wines to choose from. We have so much food that we end up offering some of it to a small group who is sitting in the lounge!
More of Marvelous Matera
Tourmate trying to decide what to choose!
Our group learning about Matera's amazing past.
Time to take a coffee! Barista at work.
Italian 101: It’s unusually warm this spring. The temperature reaches 80 degrees in Matera. Too early for air conditioning, though. Electricity is expensive and government regulated.
Italian 101: Italians are only comfortable when touching another human being we are told. It’s life by touch. How unlike Americans and Canadians! When there are four of us at a museum see what happens when we decide to sit down!
Pat's antipasto...cut the mozzarella ball and a river of cream runs out. It's called Burrata cheese.
Mark studying artifacts in the archaeological museum.
Staying cool in the shade!
© 2019 Jana Bauer
Page Five - Puglia & Basilicata
