On the Appian Way....

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We checked out of our apartment on Friday morning, after first hearing the story of the "madman" of Ostuni. He is an older man who walks around shouting in a peculiar, but very loud voice, often in front of our apartment, It turns out that he stole a pack of cigarettes when he was 17, and the police beat him so badly that he has permanent brain damage....very, very sad.

We had to walk quite a ways to get to the car rental, but the process went smoothly and we were given temporary custody of a white Fiat 500. I was the designated driver for Day One. We headed first for Locorotondo, another hilltop, white town. Our next stop was Matera, the oldest sight of continuous human inhabitation in Italy, if not all Europe.

"The area of what is now Matera has been settled since the Palaeolithic. The city was allegedly founded by the Romans in the 3rd century BC, with the name of Matheola after the consul Lucius Caecilius Metellus. In AD 664 Matera was conquered by theLombards and became part of the Duchy of Benevento. In the 7th and 8th centuries the nearby grottos were colonized by bothBenedictine and Basilian monastic institutions. The 9th and 10th centuries were characterized by the struggle between theByzantines and the German emperors, including Louis II, who partially destroyed the city. After the settlement of the Normans in Apulia, Matera was ruled by William Iron-Armfrom 1043.

After a short communal phase and a series of pestilences and earthquakes, the city in the 15th century became an Aragonesepossession, and was given in fief to the barons of the Tramontano family. In 1514, however, the population rebelled against the oppression and killed Count Giovanni Carlo Tramontano. In the 17th century Matera was handed over to the Orsini and then became part of the Terre d'Otranto di Puglia. Later it was capital of Basilicata, a position it retained until 1806, when Joseph Bonaparte reassigned it to Potenza. In 1927 it became capital of the province of Matera. On September 21, 1943, the Materani rose against the German occupation, the first Italian city to fight against the Wehrmacht.

Matera has gained international fame for its ancient town, the "Sassi di Matera" (meaning "stones of Matera"). The Sassi originated in a prehistoric troglodyte settlement, and these dwellings are thought to be among the first ever human settlements in what is now Italy. The Sassi are habitations dug into the calcareous rock itself, which is characteristic of Basilicata and Apulia. Many of them are really little more than caverns, and in some parts of the Sassi a street lies on top of another group of dwellings. The ancient town grew up on one slope of the rocky ravine created by a river that is now a small stream, and this ravine is known locally as "la Gravina". In the 1950s, the government of Italy used force to relocate most of the population of the Sassi to areas of the developing modern city.

Until the late 1980s the Sassi was considered an area of poverty, since its dwellings were, and in most cases still are, uninhabitable. The present local administration, however, has become more tourism-oriented, and it has promoted the regeneration of the Sassi with the aid of the Italian government, UNESCO, and Hollywood. Today there are many thriving businesses, pubs, and hotels there." Wikipedia The Passion of Christ was filmed in Matera.

We were somewhat worried that this would be visiting "the poor zoo" to quote John Oliver (talking about Cuba), but most of the sassi were either closed up, or being renovated into restaurants or B&Bs....

I had some difficulty leaving Matera because of a detour, but finally got headed back in the right direction,,,(thank you GPS). I like driving on really back roads, so selected "no highways" in the GPS. We first found ourselves on the Via Appia (The actual Appian way, built by the Romans from Rome to Brindisi), paved over now, but still following the ancient route of the centurions and later the Crusaders. We wound our way up the Pollina Mountains, and I was soon driving on a road that appeared have melted. Huge cracks, wash outs, sharp curves and hundred foot drop-offs without guard rails! I drove on this for an hour or so along a mountain ridge, until we finally made it back to regular paving, and populated areas!

We arrived in Terra Nova Del Pollina around 7:00pm, expecting to find a hotel room. However, all the hotels were still closed for the season. The sizeable town was a several hour drive away, in the dark...We went back to the tiny village square, where a large group of men were gathered. It turns out that they had just completed a rescue practice exercise involving a helicopter, and everyone was pretty excited. I managed to communicate our need for a room to the cafe/bar waiter who made some calls and found us a B&B who opened just for us! And there was a restaurant across the tiny street that turned out to be owned by a lovely English/Italian young couple...We had a good dinner, and chatted with retired Swedish biologists who had studied in Covallis, Oregon in the early 70's.

One thing to know about Italian villagers: They will stare at you long past the socially acceptable limit. They will often stop in their tracks and stare at you. Even the 89 year midget came out of the bar to stare at me, when I was asking for help. You just have to let it go...sometimes saying hello helps, but sometimes that make the stare even more intense...

"The Pollino National Park (Italian: Parco nazionale del Pollino) is a national park in Basilicata and Calabria, southernItaly. Comprised within the provinces of Cosenza, Matera and Potenza, with its 1,820 square kilometres it is the largest natural park in the country. It takes its name from the Pollino Massif (highest peak 2,267 m). It was founded in 1992 and includes both natural and archaeological points of interest. The park's symbol is the Bosnian pine, which here has one of its last remaining growing areas in Italy. Albanian-speaking communities are present in communes such as San Paolo Albanese,San Costantino Albanese and others. In the Valle del Mercure have been discovered remains of pre-historic species such as Elephas antiquus and Hippopotamus major."

We had a quiet night, on scratchy sheets....high in the mountains, at about 3000 feet...

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Photos

"Oronz lu pacc" = Oronzo the madman
Brain damaged after a police beating as a teen....he wanders Ostuni, shouting, and smoking...His parents care for him, but are now old....he is looked on with kindness by the residents of our neighborhood, where he lives...

Comments

[G]

Very
Interesting locale. Thanks. G