Blogs from Matera, Basilicata, Italy, Europe - page 2

After an uninspiring breakfast (and now two more days of the same!) we eventually found an information place and ended up on a bus to Matera, 1.5 hrs trip, thankful to be out of Bari. Roy said "well, who would have thought, on a Sunday afternoon we would be sitting in a bus in Italy travelling from Bari to Matera?" We arrived in Matera, purchased a map from the Info area, declined a guided tour and set off. There was a large political rally in the piazza for the Liberal Party so lots of people. First stop was a visit to and underground aqua storage system, one of several, most impressive. Then we wandered off to the historic area. We rounded a corner and Bam! what a sight to see all the houses and cave houses ... read more

Geo: 40.6687, 16.6061We drove along the Amalfi Coast to Salerno and then headed inland to Paestum which was a large Greek settlement about the sixth century BC. There are three temples still standing. The columns were made of sandstone which may explain why they are still standing but the later Roman buildings are all but gone. They were constructed of rock and cement and perhaps like in Rome the rocks were retrieved from the ruins and used to build local buildings. The museum in Paestum is excellent with 3 floor of exhibits of the artifacts.We then began a trip on the A# across Italy headed East for a town called Matera famous for the caves which early inhabitants used. On the opposite side from the caves is the town and the hillside which also had caves ... read more

My thoughts have been swimming towards the past lately...i've been hovering in warm memories of home in Connecticut, not even of Florence. And because of the holidays coming up, being a new town, new apartment, new life in many ways, I've taken solace in the feelings of comfort and magic that I felt in CT during my childhood/adolescent years. I've also realized that making a home or nest is not as easy as all that poetic rhetoric describes- an honorable challenge. It's not attached to place, as most say, and yet it's the qualities of that physical place that provide the skeleton upon which we add, build, transform our needs and desires into what we can physically and mentally call "home". I'm not there now, not yet. We'd built a small nest of sort in Florence. ... read more

Tuesday 23rd March (Luscious Lil) We left Palermo after meeting two British couples new onto Sicily, both had had dreadful experiences driving through the capital. So our expectations of more horrendous driving were not disappointed. For the Italians lining up at traffic lights involves making as many lanes as you can out of two,also seeing how far passed the traffic lights you can get, Indian style (although not nearly as bad as Mumbai), before they change. We passed the next couple of days working our way back to Messina to transfer back to Italy. Saturday 27th March Alan’s Birthday! Look what I got Alan for his birthday. Off road Motorhome driving! Leaving our overnight ‘camperstop’ we needed to cross a small ford, which now means that we have taken the ‘magic bus’ to another level, off-roading, ... read more

Friday 5th September Nova Siri…….Castro Bolito Today was a lazy day!! I love those days!! We had some food stuff that we wanted to use up, so before heading off to the beach we cooked some sauce for lunch and a casserole for dinner. As part of the price for the accommodation, we were given a lounge chair, a beach chair and umbrella. The kids went canoeing, first with us and then on their own. Since they had their own lifejackets I wasn’t overly concerned. Actually Kurt was supervising them from a distance of 20 metres in his own canoe. I don’t know how that was supposed to work! When I tried to help the kids move away from the shore with their canoes, I often fell on the rocks because the tide was so ... read more