Wednesday 22nd May 2019

Today we set off to visit the prehistoric troglodyte settlement of Sassi di Matera and the Trulli di Alberobello famous for the unique trullo buildings, whitewashed dry stone huts with conical roofs.

We left it rather late to leave for our visit and didn’t arrive at Matera until around 4pm and the town was still very busy. We decided to backtrack to the belvedere on the Murgia plateau where there are fantastic views of Matera and the ravine, known locally as la Gravina, over which it hangs. The viewpoints location is 40.6639N 16.6178E.

Sassi di Matera seen from Belvedere

The Sassi houses are dug directly into the rock and many are nothing more than small caverns.

In the 1950s almost all of the inhabitants were forcefully relocated to the new city because of disease and the dangerous state of the houses. Today there are again people living in the Sassi some claiming to live in houses that their ancestors from 9,000 years ago had once lived in!

Matera, streets laid upon streets

More recent administrations have redeveloped the city as a tourist attraction with the help of Hollywood, (many films having been shot on location here), the EU, the Italian government, and UNESCO. It was granted World Heritage Site status in 1993.

Deciding against returning to the busy town, we headed off to Alberobello to see the trullo buildings. The Trulli of Alberobello are another UNESCO World Heritage site, granted the status in 1996.

Trulli di Alberobello

The style of the buildings came about because peasants sent to farm the area were required to build their homes of stone, with no mortar. The peasants found that building the roofs ‘in the round’ was the strongest way to resist the elements. The domed roof is formed with concentric rings of stones overlapping each other.

Many of the domes have a decorative pinnacle or symbols which were a signature like emblem of the builder of the trullo, ceremonial of an occasion, or religious.

Trullo with Pinnacle

Trulli Roof Symbols

After wandering the streets looking around these fascinating dwellings we stopped for coffee, at tourist prices 🙂 , before crossing into the newer part of town to photograph the trulli from the viewing gallery.

Trulli di Alberobello

The light was fading fast at this point so we made our way back to the car via the trulli streets and set off back to camp.

More Italian moronic driving was witnessed by a guy in an Alfa Romeo passing so close to the back of our car as he overtook at possibly 3 times the speed limit. I swear that if Ford had put one more coat of paint on, this guy would have scratched it!

Having had enough of the driving we have booked the ‘camp on board’ ferry from Bari to Patras on Monday evening and will be taking our tourist Euros to Greece to spend.