Puglia and a bit of Rome. Part 5. Alberobello and Matera
To be continued. Start here >>>
It would be right to talk about two famous cities that we visited a year earlier - Alberobello and Matera. The cities are unique, unlike any other city in Italy.
Alberobello
The most convenient way to get to Alberobello is from Bari. Trains in this direction run every hour, and the trip will take an hour and a half, the ticket costs 5 euros. There are also bus routes.
This city is famous for its unique houses, called "trullo", you will not see them anywhere else in the world.
Trullo is a house built of limestone without the use of cement, which has a cone-shaped roof. Such a house is a traditional dwelling that can be seen in different parts of Puglia. Residents came up with the shape of such houses in order not to pay taxes. To do this, with the help of three horses directed in different directions,
they removed the stone at the base of the roof, on which the whole house rested (the same cornerstone! ). And in place of the house there is a pile of stones. In total, there are about 20 thousand trulli in Puglia, there are special maps where all existing buildings are indicated.
In 1979, the suffering of local residents ended with the abolition of taxes. It is now fashionable to buy a trullo as a country house. The cheapest one costs about 6 thousand euros per sq. m. meter. The houses have a very good environment.
The first trullo was built in 1635, and in 1925 a law was passed to stop the construction of such houses. Now the city is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Alberobello stands on two hills. Vostochny occupies a modern city with new architecture. Its main attraction is the temple of Cosmas and Damian, the patrons of the city, in which fragments of their relics are kept.
The main street of this part of the city is Corso Vittorio Emanuele Avenue.
Passing through the center of the city, it ends up at the Piazza del Popolo. There are many shops and restaurants along the avenue.
The western hill is almost entirely occupied by trulli quarters. One of the most popular among them is Rione Monti. It contains about a thousand different trulli.
Walking down Via Monte Michele past the city's commercial center. . .
. . . you can see the Chiesa di Sant'Antonio church dating back to the 12th century and built in the trulli style.
Mostly there are many different souvenir and retail outlets.
There are also two-story trulli.
Of course, very interesting places for photos.
Alberobello is a small town, it takes 2-3 hours to see it.
Matera
Matera is not in Puglia, but in the neighboring region of Basilicata. A train to Altamura departs from Bari in this direction every hour, there is a fork and you need to change to another train to Matera.
There are no trains on this line on Sundays and Italian holidays. This line is called FAL, so there is a separate small railway station for it on the forecourt. The trip to Matera takes about two hours. With a strong desire, you can have time to see other interesting cities in this direction - Almatura and Gravina. But then you have to leave Bari early and on a long daylight.
The city arose on the opposite slopes of a river valley called the crevice of Gravina di Matera.
There is such a bridge in the gorge between two hills:
During Magna Graecia Matera was a Greek city centered on Civita. Today, the Cathedral rises here, built in the 13th century, squeezed into a tiny square.
The Cathedral rises above the Sassi.
It once belonged to a Benedictine monastery. The cathedral is distinguished by a beautiful sharp rose-shaped window and a 52-meter bell tower.
The cathedral houses the famous Byzantine fresco Madonna della Bruna, who is considered the patroness of the city.
Palace Lanfranca can be found near the historic center of the city. The Palazzo was built in 1672 and now houses the Art Museum of Medieval and Modern Art of Matera.
Palazzo Annunziata (Good News) - Palazzo dell'Annunziata - built in 1735
The Palace of the Assembly (Palazzo del Sedile) is located on the square, the square was originally a market place, and since the 18th century it has become a concentration of administrative buildings - the residence of the governor, the prison and the palace.
On the right side of this square is a beautiful church - St. Francis of Assisi, built in the 13th century, but only the belfry remained from the original church. In the 18th century, the faç ade was rebuilt in the Baroque style.
Years later, the city was surrounded by a protective wall, and numerous grottoes and rocky massifs began to be used for the construction of rural dwellings, so quarters began to descend from the top, which were popularly nicknamed "sassi". This name is a formation from the word "sasso" - stone, rock.
Among the underground catacombs of the Sassi are huge monastic complexes,
with many cells and unique underground churches carved in stone, like the Basilica of St. Peter Barisano, located in the northwest of the Sassi. This building is a prime example of medieval architecture. The facade is made of tuff rocks, and the interior is almost a rocky cave.
Slightly below these cave churches is the Church of San Pietro Caveoso, built in 1218, in a small area above the cliff into the canyon. In the 17th century The church has undergone many changes and acquired a baroque look. Inside there are art paintings and frescoes.
Under Piazza Vittorio Veneto there is a huge reservoir called the "Long Diver" (Palombaro lungo), some compartments of which were built three thousand years ago,
while others were executed in the 18th century.
Almost the entire population of the city lived in such caves, and even because of the constant heat, all the houses were wide open, dogs, sheep, goats and pigs lay on the floor. There was no running water or sewerage.
For example, historic house on Vico Solitario, which reproduces the atmosphere of the time when Matera was inhabited.
In the middle of the room there is a high bed on which the whole family slept. Under the bed there is a pot, a trough and other utensils that were taken out during the day.
There is also a stall for animals and a dining table. Kitchenette in a separate small room, another room was used as a utility room,
"hole-pipe" - for collecting snow, which melted and gave precious water.
Light came into the house from a small window upstairs. The temperature in the houses was almost constant - 15 degrees, the tuff, in which the dwellings were arranged, worked as a climate control.
After World War II, Carlo Levi's book "Christ Stopped at Eboli" is published, in which he talks about the unbearable conditions of life in the Sassi di Matera. The area began to be called "The Shame of Italy" and in 1952 it was decided to move the inhabitants to new quarters, freeing unhygienic cave houses from all this evil spirits, and at that time almost 15 thousand people lived in these Sassi. But... Many of them, especially the elderly, did not want to leave their homes and returned back. Then the authorities went to extreme measures and began to wall up the entrances to the caves with cement.
Our guide, a local resident, tells
as a boy he ran to this deserted area, despite the prohibition of his parents.
Gradually, the Old City was empty. It was washed, cleaned, and began to be turned into a tourist town. People began to re-populate here only decades later, starting in 1986.
After the Sassi di Matera became uninhabited, they became the backdrop for many films. Pier Paolo Pasolini filmed The Gospel According to Matthew in 1964 and Mel Gibson filmed The Passion of the Christ in 2004 here.
In 1993, the settlement, already restored in some places and relieved of poverty, was included in the UNESCO lists, and now the cave city is a popular mecca among tourists.
But there are still no street names or house numbers, long alleyways can end in dead ends, and the entrances to many caves are walled up or clogged.
Well, some caves are now luxury hotels, shops and restaurants.
Here in Matera, we had little sightseeing time. It is very interesting to wander through the back streets, where the pavement is the roof of the building below. Perhaps, in the evening light, this sight would be especially bewitching.
Some more photos at the end of the story:
Continued here >>>
