Best Western Miceneo Palace Hotel Matera

... for over 7,000 years! So we drove 3 hours to get there and stopped to briefly explore the beautiful but boring town of Tricarico on the way. The drive was quite beautiful along very nice country lanes that reminded us of the Tuscany region.<br><br>Matera is located on the edge of a deep river ravine and has a rambling ancient neighborhood area called the &#8220;Sassi&#8221; district. The Sassi is a large area of ancient dwellings and businesses that are actual ...

... are built into the rock face, often with just discernible faded frescoes painted onto the walls. There really is a biblical aspect to the landscape, and it comes as no surprise that the town was used as the setting for Mel Gibson&#8217;s &#8216;The Passion of the Christ&#8217;. &#8216;Simply Perfect&#8217;, he is reported to have said when first seeing Matera, and it isn&#8217;t hard to see why.

This is where Pietro, an old Italian guy, jumped into Bruce and navigated us to the trulli. He saved us from a traffic jam in the narrow streets of Puglia.<br><br>Pete was also called Pietro while in Italy. :-)<br><br>Trullo comes from the Greek word, "tholos" &#8211; meaning &#8220;dome&#8221;. See the pictures of the wee houses.<br><br>We found the Belvedere pub here too - also the name of our local in Aus &#8211; meaning &#8220;beautiful view&#8221;. It was beautiful.

... train station in the country and they could give you any information about any train in the country. We showed up to a small town train station and they had to call 2 different numbers to find out what the price was for the train and also to find out that in fact bikes are not allowed on the smaller regional trains. We would have to bike the desert and mountains in order to arrive in Potenza a train from which we could take a State train.

(Note : All entries from now until Perth in November are way<br>shorter than they should be, as all out text got stolen, together with<br>our laptop, all our valuables, and almost our whole campervan, when it<br>was broken into and trashed in Rome at the end of October. Have a look<br>at that entry if you want to have a look at the damage the *******s<br>did. The next month or so´s text is written 6 months later, so ...

About 2 weeks ago I went away with Gianluca and Manuela to their hometown - Matera which is in the South of Italy. It took us 5 hours by train to get to Bari (an Italian Port), and then we met Phillipo one of Gianluca and Manuela's friends, who drove us the rest of the way to Matera. We arrived that night at about 11pm, then dropped our bags of at Manuela's mother's house and went out for for drinks. Over the course of the weekend I reckon I ...

I decided to remain in Matera for an extra day. The old city, boasting a heritage of nearly 10,000 years is clearly majestic in its effect on the first time visitor. Not too touristy (yet), the city gives out the real feeling of what living in a small, secluded, cliff hanging cave town would be like. One can easily imagine this by looking up towards the still vacant stone houses and caves or looking down at the creak and the rocky hills surrounding it ...

Ah, I will miss Cericarica... As I entered the village I knew I wanted to stay. The village it self is situated on the cliff of a mountain densely populated with old stone houses. The town itself is small and tranquil. The people I met were kind, welcoming and keen on helping. When I went to look for a degreasing material for my bike, the bike store honor offered to wash my bike (together with him). And so he did. We took his ...

Short ride yet breathtaking. Via Appia is magnificent! An ancient roman road which is situated comfortably on the mountains above the highway is also amerced in natural forest and meadows, dotted here and there by small town houses, grazing sheep, pigs or hens. There is barely any traffic on the road - definite a bikers heaven. The mountain peaks reach a hight of more than 1000 m.

... be my next entry). <br>When I get back they talk me into staying longer because it will be my birthday in a couple of days time (18th May, so there's no excuse for you all not to send me belated birthday greetings for those who didn't know, AND those who did know but forgot), and it would break their hearts for me not to have it with them, and other emotional family blackmail, etc, so I stay on, feeling like an object which they want to put food into :). <br>Then Manuelas's ...