Puglia #2

The girls took us to a city called Matera about an hour west of here. It is well known for its cave houses which date back about 10,000 years. There are natural caves in the limestone rocks and they were later dug out and expanded. We saw where they had set up an example of one of these where they even had animals living in there with them.

Fronts were built on to the caves and when the population increased in about the 1930s and the squalor with open sewers got so bad that the government rehoused the inhabitants. It is slowly becoming a tourist attraction and the odd bnb and cafe is appearing . The place is now a UNESCO world heritage site.

The scenes for some biblical movies have been filmed in Matera.

Another day we drove half an hour to Alberobello which is famous in the region for all the Trulli in the old part of the city.

A cut away model showing how Trulli are made.

That day we also visited a co-op where people bring their olives to be pressed. It is the wrong time of the year to see it in action but we were shown a video of the process. Huge granite rollers crush the olives and these days the pulp is put into a centrifuge to extract the oil. They only get about 10 to 15 kg of oil from 100 kg of olives.

Just down the road from us is a relatively new winery where we were taken several floors underground to where the wine is stored in 30,000 litre vats and down to another level where it is matured in French oak barrels. 

The best part was when we were taken up to ground level to a huge ornate tasting room. We were seated at a table and sampled three different wines and were served food from the region. It was all a bit much considering we were to eat a three course dinner soon afterwards.

 The main foyer of the vineyard

Looking down several stories to the barrel room.