MATERA - city carved from rock.

I have been to Matera a couple of times before and it is hauntingly beautiful. The photos never do it justice. I had been to this hotel before, many years ago but hadn’t remembered the journey to it, the ups and downs of the stairs, dragging out bags in the heat, so we were slightly exhausted upon arrival. I had been raving about this place and it's weird beauty but I could tell the companion wasn't impressed.

We were shown to our room but it was small and not like the room I had booked, with a tiny window. I told the lady that I had been here thirteen years ago and I was hoping for a larger room as was advertised and suddenly we were shown to a beautiful cave room with a little terrace and a view that embraced the whole of this strangely eerie yet stunning town.

The whole place is carved out of the tufa rock. People lived here since prehistoric times until the 1950’s when they were forced to move out to a Mussolini designated new town that was built for them and had electricity and water. Before then there were constant outbreaks of malaria and disease and it became a ghost town until recently when they began to restore the town making hotels in the cave dwellings. I stand and look out from our veranda over the honey coloured dwellings and dipping in and out are the swallows and the lesser kestrels that live here and claim it as their own. They swoop in between the buildings, fattened by the bugs in the air at dusk and dawn. It was here that I sat a few years ago and watched the swallows and decided that one day I would have a tattoo of one, symbolising the freedom of their constant movements and last year I got one.

We went for lunch at Nadi ristorante and I had an amazing chicken dish. It was layers of chicken and thinly sliced eggplant with a creamy tomato sauce. The bread here is golden as the wheat in the south is famous. We dip it in the green olive oil and have our favourite green - cime di rapa and life is good. That night as we look out over the town, the church bells ring across from us and then they are followed one after the other from the other churches, all different.

We dine in a cave restaurant on homemade tagliatelle and thin slices of truffle and wandering home, the city is transformed into gold, the street lights gilding the warm stone, a waning moon above us.

I remembered this hotel because of its breakfast. It’s amazing. We juice blood red oranges, there are the wonderful breads of the region and one I will always remember - focaccia style bread brushed with rich spicy olive oil and sprinkled with sugar, it’s divine, the contrasting flavours, the crunch of the sugar crystals.

We wander up and down the winding staircases in and out of the cave like structures and that afternoon we go for a tour in a little ape ute or wasp as the Italians call it, converted for tourists and we’re shown the old caves across the valley where people lived once, the tombs and churches cut into the hillside and the fossilised shells in the buildings here. That night we become obsessed looking for them. The earth is extraordinary, pushing up mountains full of shells in the middle of Italy.

On our last night in Matera, we wander and find a beautiful gallery filled with the cuckoo whistles ‘cucu’ whose sound is recreated by breathing into the whistle. They are painted in vibrant colours to help ward off evil spirits and we buy a couple of small ones but I would have loved one of the bigger ones, they’re beautiful.

Salerno, Amalfi and Ravello.

Another four hour drive, (so google says but it lies) but it's always more, even going on highways at 130 km per hour. We finally arrive but we realise that my friend’s finger had worsened and he had the good sense to say he’d better go to the hospital. But we were in the south, not many people spoke English, we were so lucky that when we arrived at our room, the woman there was incredibly helpful. She called a taxi and translated when he arrived there.

Luckily he went, as soon as he got into see the Doctor, she put a tourniquet on his finger, which unsettled him considerably as no one spoke English. He had the presence of mind to ring Angela, our host and she translated. I had stayed at home thinking he’d come back with antibiotics. I was with the woman when she was talking him through it. It was severely infected and they would have to remove his fingernail! Then I had guilt that I hadn’t gone with him. He returned an hour later with a horror story re southern Italian hospitals. They had asked a big burly lad to come in and hold him down whilst they removed it with no anaesthetic, local or otherwise, offered. He said it was excruciating. I’d just been reading a book set in Italy in WWII and that’s what they did in wartime to get people to confess! But the Doctor had said it was lucky he had come then and that the infection could have gotten into his bone. We concluded that the pain had been worth it. We didn’t understand why no local anaesthetic was applied but as we told this story during the rest of our travels with the mention of Salerno hospital, people would make the sign of the cross! 'Ah, the south, they would say, that's not where you want to get sick!'

We needed alcohol, (he obviously more than I) and luckily, as in all of Italy there was not one but three across the road and as the alcohol did it's job, he was ravenous. Salerno is a port city and known for it's seafood, (I chose this town because it was cheaper than staying in all the famous towns of Positano, Ravello etc). We had an excellent seafood meal that night with a top up of more alcohol.

.

The next day we found a chemist as the hospital had given him no antibiotics and no information on how to look after it. The difference between Australian and Italian chemists is that here chemists can prescribe antibiotics and pain killers, which they did and they suggested ways to dress it (which was a nightmare after we tackled it later that day and which then required more alcohol). Equipped with a bag of bandages, sterile solutions, pain killers etc we then went to the vegetable market which was crazy. The noise from the vendors shouting their produce was loud and boisterous. We found the first tiny fragolini, wild strawberries and the flat peaches they have here that are so sweet, there was wild asparagus and rotund deep purple eggplants, if only we had a kitchen!

And then we headed to the harbour and found a place overlooking the water. We lunched on a plate of prosciutto, local cheese with fried pizza balls and zucchini flowers stuffed with smoked ricotta and anchovy. But the heat was too much and we headed back to rest until the evening meal.

We’d been told about Mamma Rosa’s but nothing prepared us for mamma. We walked in and she was at our table before we’d even got to the menu, a tiny plump little woman of means. She recommended a few things and left us to decide. We chose too much but ate everything. The plate of vegetables was amazing - caponata, roasted red capsicum, some strange vegetable that we’d seen at the markets and our favourite green. Then came the grilled squid with a simple sauce of lemon and wild mint and a green olive oil. Then fried sardines with onion and mint. The plates were beautiful, all fish related and the dishes enormous. A big carafe of wine and the price! So cheap. We went home satiated.

The next day we explored the old town and lunched on stuffed fried sardines; squid with fennel and wild mint and the best fried zuchinis ever with balsamic and mint and good peasant bread with that greenish hued olive oil.

We went back to Mamma Rosa’s for dinner. Too good not to. We had the local pasta with mussels, lemon rind and grated fresh pecorino and then a plate of mussels and seafood in a garlicky sauce. And yes, our days were filled with food!

But he was on the mend so the next day we got the ferry to Amalfi. We passed by houses and villages hanging precariously on rocky outcrops.

I’m glad we didn’t go by the bus, the road hugging the cliffs looked scary. We were on our way to the famous garden in Ravello, Villa Rufolo . We caught a taxi up the very tiny windy road. Looking over the edge we saw lemon groves espaliered on the hillside of the deep valley as we wound our way up and were delivered to the tiny town of Ravello.

We stopped for a quick caffeine fix with a crispy pastry filled with lemon custard and almond meal. And then off to the famous villa, past caper bushes and gardens filled with lemon trees and vegetables. Villa Rufolo dates back to the 13th century with remodelling in the 19th century by a Scottish aristocrat and the beautiful gardens were added. Richard Wagner, the famous German composer and Greta Garbo stayed there.

Stunning gardens, statues, incredible views and after that we looked around the town. Beautiful ceramics shops everywhere I found a beautiful plate that was like nothing I’d seen before, I wanted it badly but it was too expensive. I gave up and we went for lunch of fritto misto, (fried seafood) and a plate of chicory and then whilst I waited for the taxi, the friend said he was just popping in to see the shop and he came back with the plate!

Then down to Ravello to have the famous lemonade made with the thick skinned lemons that are used for Limoncello. And after that we had a Cedro liquor at Bar Francese, one of the oldest in Ravello and then home.

That night we went to a place where they had ceramic fishes swimming along the colourful walls. We had a strange hot pot with cannellini beans and mussels with croutons that I wasn’t sure about and then a potato and chicory pie with octopus and roasted capsicum sauce and truffle pasta.

The old town at night was beautiful, all lit up with warm lighting and interesting shops, marine based!

Sorano - medieval hilltop town. 2nd stop.

The journey began on the highway but then after 3 hours we suddenly turned off and were in the countryside. Wheat fields dotted with red poppies, farmhouses, the Tuscan landscape edged here and there with the pine trees that say Tuscany.

We drove and drove an drove some more and then we started to climb into a heavily forested area and then suddenly we popped out in Sorano, a city carved out of rock or tufa. The first inhabitants were the Iron age people, followed by the Etruscans and later taken over in the 1500’s by the Counts of Orsini, I had been there maybe 16 years ago with my late husband and we were stunned at its beauty. The memory lingered and I had always wanted to come back and it was halfway to Salerno, our next destination.

The heat on the mountain top town was palpable. We managed to find the fortress turned hotel but it seemed so different back then. We walked over the drawbridge, looking down over the side to sheer drops into the gully below. The woman at the desk took us to our room but it was at the back of the fortress, with no view and a tiny window. We looked and I asked if she had another room and she did. She returned with another key and let us in to a room that was like an eyrie, high up and overlooking the valley and the sheer cliffs. Swallows and swifts zooming by, swooping in the late afternoon light. She asked if it was ok, we took the key and settled in.

We went walkabout. The village itself was tiny, the shops only just starting to open after siesta. We wandered through the tiny car-less streets and found a shop run by a woman who made nearly everything. Jewellery, ceramics, adding lace and paintings to clothing. We bought. She was from Florence and came every summer to sell her work here. The streets as we walked through were empty but after we left with our purchases, a beautiful ceramic necklace of stars for me and a tiny dish with fish painted on it, suddenly there were people around. Later we found out that there was an international language school here and that kept this place alive.

We passed an old man seated in a chair by his house, getting a breeze that had just started up from the valley. He pointed to a place that he said we absolutely had to go to. It was the Jewish ghetto. We found out later that when the Jewish people were having a hard time elsewhere, the Orsinis welcomed them. The Orsinis were the ones who built the fortress to protect the area.

We went for a drink as the restaurant didn’t open till 7.30. The manager, whom we thought was Austrian for some reason, asked if we’d like something with our drink and I was worried a) the cost and b) if we ate too much we wouldn’t eat dinner. None of the above happened.

A plate of cheeses, bread, prosciutto and olives arrived - free and we found out the guy was from New Zealand, had come for a holiday, married and stayed.

We then went to the only place open on a Monday night and that’s when we realised that there were a lot of students from the school and most of them arrived during the evening. I ate home made gnocchi with porcini mushrooms and we had the the best greens - and then tiramisu and then of course, the free limoncello as the sun set slowly through an arched walkway.