After an early breakfast, we climbed up to the main square in Matera to meet our bus. Our luggage was collected before breakfast and taken to the bus. We left Matera going through the new upper town where the 17,000 cave dwelling residents had been relocated. It looked 1960’s modern.
Our first destination was Alberobello which is another Unesco site. The main attraction is the trullo houses. They are small conical dwellings constricted using limestone slabs from the fields with no mortar to hold the stones in place. Trullo is from the Greek tolos meaning round. The houses had been abandoned for a long time and were crumbling. When Albanians arrived as refugees, they were eager for work and able to repair the houses. Once the area was reestablished and given protection by UNESCO, it became a major attraction. Each set of trullo houses was distinguished by the small decoration on the peak of the cone. As families grew, they added connecting trulli for expansion. Walls were several feet thick and roofs had two layers of stone placed in different directions to keep out water. The very old portion has a few B&Bs but no shops. The newer section which is several hundred years old has local shops and a church. Apparently in the summer, the town is clogged with tourists. We were quite alone on a cool January day.
We left for our next destination which was a top level extra virgin olive oil producer. Puglia produces about 90% of the top EVOO in Italy.
This producer is a 5th generation family business. The production is finished for the year. Olives are harvested and quickly processed from October through December. Once the harvest begins, the production runs 24/7. We had a tour with the owner giving an explanation of each type they make. Each type was slightly different She has expanded into making chocolate and cosmetics with top quality oil. We had a tasting of 7 types of oil. It was then easy to choose the number you preferred.
We finished by taking photos in front of an olive tree that is over 1000 years old…and still producing! We moved on to our lunch spot in the town of Ostuni. It is called the white city because the old city has whitewashed walls. We ate in a small restaurant that served many small vegetarian dishes. They were all very simple and tasty.
We returned to our bus to reach our final destination, Lecce, which is a sizable city with a big university. Our B&B is a charming place owned by a couple who left the design world of Milan to create this beautiful spot. Wow!
We got settled and walked into the old town to get our bearings. We had drinks and snacks. We returned to our B&B to get ready for tomorrow.
The Adventures of Anne 