Matera & Puglia
And I’m off to Italy!
My girlfriend and I flew from JFK to Rome, then took a second plane to Bari (near the heel of Italy). There was a particularly turbulent moment on that flight that placed me smack-dab in the middle of a Final Destination movie. How sad, I thought while in the air — before I’d ever gotten the chance to taste real Italian pasta, too.
We rented a car and bought max coverage because as it was explained to me, auto thefts in the south are extremely common. Apparently the rental companies, the insurance providers and the region’s mob are all conspiring to get tourists to buy coverage or ensure their cars get stolen if they don’t. Whether that’s true or not I’ll never know, but better safe than sorry and either way I didn’t want to start the trip getting my legs broken by a guy named Alfredo.
Matera
We spent the first two nights in Matera, often cited as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. Apparently people lived here as far back as 9,000 years ago. The city is full of cave and stone-based dwellings; we made it a point to stay in one such cave in the thick of the old city.
The City of Stone
Highlights:
1. Real Italian pasta on the first night.
2. Nearly 28K steps walking and climbing almost every inch of the old city on Day 2.
3. Jetlag allowing us to wake up early enough to bask in the sunrise from a picturesque cliff overlooking the Matera horizon.
Matera at sunrise
Puglia
On Day 3 we left Matera and drove to a small town in the Puglia region called Locorotondo. Our Airbnb was this gimmicky but very cool limestone hut called a trullo. Apparently these trulli were all the rage in feudal Italy, with legends told about landowners constructing the huts en masse to avoid property tax.
Our trullo Airbnb
We spent the next four days driving endlessly and visiting different small towns in the region. Here let me just take a moment to say driving in Puglia was an absolute nightmare. Terrible roads and even worse drivers who overtook at every opportunity, even at bends where you couldn’t make out oncoming traffic. You’d think that a people who live next to the Mediterranean Sea and at a snail’s lifestyle pace would be calm behind the wheel. Maybe they were all racing to overtake at every bend in a mad rush to claim the best table at the seaside terrace.
My girlfriend and I enjoyed a beach day in Punta Prosciutto (1), and spent lots of time in places called Alberobello (2), Ostuni, Monopoli (3), and Polignano a Mare (4). Beautiful towns with distinct traits and landmarks — like the water embankment between two seaside cliffs in Polignano a Mare — but eventually they all started to feel similar. Still, we took a ton of pics worthy of the gram and carb overloaded on an abundance of delicious pastas and pizzas.
Speaking of food, my girlfriend and I did hit a brief snag between us about that — in retrospect, hilarious and a growing experience for us both. More on that another time.
And that’s it — this leg of the trip is complete. We made it back to Bari airport with our rental car in one piece (no accidents from insane Puglian drivers, no mobsters breaking the windows and sticking us with the bill, thank God). Onto Rome next. Ciao!
Highlights:
1. Hanging out on the massive rock beds against the sea in Monopoli.
2. The water embankment in Polignano a Mare. This is a must-visit if you ever go to Puglia.
Polignano a Mare