WHY WE MADE MATERA OUR BASE.

 

I (Jackie) had ‘discovered’ the Sassi (troglodyte City of Stones) of Matera on Images, and then on Wikipedia and the like about five years ago, and I made sure to put it on our itinerary when we drove to the heel of Italy in 2011.  Although it was two years a heritage site, up until 2011 mainly academics and archaeologists visited it.

There was then one expensive cave hotel and one cafè, and a few craftspeople; also one cave dwelling that had been furnished to show how 60,000 people had lived in this troglodyte city, mostly sharing one room with all their children, elderly parents and their animals, including their precious donkey, which transported them down and up the steep, winding streets and many flights of stairs. You can view it on ‘Google Images’.

Carlo Levi discovered it when he was a political prisoner in the area, and as the result of his book ‘Christ Stopped at Eboli’ (published in 1947) Matera’s Sassi became known as ‘the Shame of Italy’ and the government cleared all the inhabitants out by 1952, offering them free passage abroad, or flats in the outer suburbs.  Now many of their descendants are working as guides, or have little businesses in the rapidly developing Sassi, which is beautiful, with ancient churches (many from 4th century, in caves still).

It was a wonderful trip: Our weekly blogs will start at Calais and day by day take you with us on our two weeks through France and Italy in order to reach the farm (masseria) where we stayed for seven weeks so that Graham could thoroughly research the Sassi of Matera, and start writing his book. But the whole of Basilicata and its people fascinated; and the history is unique, even in Italy, where until about 1947 it was the ‘forgotten badlands’.  You might like to go to the library and get out the small book called ‘When Christ Stopped at Eboli’ by Carlo Levi.

Graham had long wanted to use it as a setting for a crime novel – so this was to be our ultimate destination. Then we planned to visit Sicily and wend our way slowly home, staying for four nights with our dear ‘family’ in Pompeii en route.

Of course, our holiday covered 10,000+ miles in all, so there is heaps more I could tell you – but we give some highlights.  We have made many friends in France and Italy; you get to meet them too.  The blogs cover not only the  high points and the comedy, but the problems we encountered on the way and how we managed to get over them so far away from home.  We hope you enjoy our journey as it unwinds.

You will find links to three of my Debbie Darkin books below: just click on them to find them in Amazon, where you can read descriptions and ‘taster’ extracts too.