from the sole of Italy: a rocky day with warm glows

Sunshine on my shoulder, dogs jumping to greet me, it is morning at Agriturismo San Teodoro Nuovo.



Maria is the owner of the property. Does that make her a farmer? Maria is a woman of class. I am dowdy next to her.

She has just come back from Milano, where her daughter was getting married. Her son lives in London. But she has been here, in this southernmost point of Italy, just about all her life. Her grandmother owned this land and now Maria is churning out the organic fruits – oranges and table grapes, she tells me. Plus just enough olives to make olive oil for the family. Yes, of course I can have some to take home.


It’s suppose to be a light driving day, a big walking day, alternating with much sitting and sipping of espressino’s. It’s never as you think it will be.

There are things that slow you down…



…and major roads turn into wisps of thin ribbon when they pass through town centers. The only way to make it through without a dent is to close your eyes and forge ahead.



Destination for the day: Locorotondo (five vowels, all “o.” Now that’s Italian!). It is, I read, at the center of the rural trulli. What are trulli? Here, they look like this:



And they are unique to Puglia. Why here and why the conical dome? I don’t know. More importantly, the guide book doesn’t know and it is its job to know. But there are, truly, trulli, evident on the drive in to Locorotondo and prominent as you look down, across the fields, from town center.




Locorotondo itself is no village. I thought it would be nice and rural, an Ed kind of place, but it’s really a small town, though one with a big personality. Whitewashed, cobbled and genuinely pretty, it lures us even more than the trulli do.







And there’s another reason why we are happy as anything to pause here. We find a great pastry shop–café–bar. Immediately I order a cappuccino and a plateful of cookies (hey, the latter is for the both of us).



They are uniquely wonderful. And the thing about wonderful cookies is that you are not satisfied with just a plateful. Within the hour, we stop by in the same café-bar for another plateful (this time with the espressino I notice others ordering).



Ah, café life. I sit back and happily engage in far' niente ("do nothing") and people watching... (children are walking home from Saturday morning school)



... Ed is pretending to read the Italian newspaper (he’ll read anything – even things written in languages he does not understand). I point to the men standing at the bar – see how content men are to get together in the middle of the day over a prosecco (Italian champagne)? What are they munching on? Oh, aperitif type things – crostini, olives, nuts... We should do that! We have just come here twice in one hour, ordering cappuccino, expressino and cookies to feed a family! We can’t now order proseccos and tidbits!

We order prosecco and tidbits.

We sip it like the Italians, except we are not Italians and we do not have their expression, their shout, their touch. Still, I am happy to pick up their habits, especially if they include ordering aperitifs in the middle of the day, espressino and cookies notwithstanding.



Call it an overload of refreshments. Ah well, food and sunshine have this way of putting one in a good mood. So we get lost on the small roads again, so what. It’s pretty in this part of the country. Sort of Celtic looking, no?



Stone, so much stone! Gotta love stone to live here. And the trulli, carrying the stone theme to an extreme.



But we have a destination still and so dallying too much is not an option.

In one guide book I read that if you can visit only one (small) city in southern Italy, it should be Matera. (UNESCO agrees, for it is now a protected heritage site.) Up until recently, not many had heard of Matera. But lo, it is the place chosen by Mel Gibson for his Passion of Christ film and so now it has that reputation to contend with as well.

In my mind, Matera is… spooky. Its age has something to do with it. Inhabited since before recorded history, it consists of every conceivable dwelling, built right into the cliffs. This includes caves, crumbling stone houses and something that is a combination of the two – the so called sassi: cave like structures where people lived (for centuries, up until just a few decades ago) in abject poverty, along with their pigs and chickens and what have you.

To look at all this is overwhelming.


houses...



caves...



and sassi


We hike into the belly of the ancient city. Matera has a lively, more accessible central core, filled with lovely squares and stylish stores. But the old crumbling structures across the ravine are the magnet for visitors. Of course it’s all rather empty now. It is December, the week before Christmas. We see maybe a handful of others strolling through this crumbling mass of inhabited (the grander houses are partly restored) rock.

And then, something happens. The sun sets and it becomes dark. Matera is the one city that is visually harmed by sunlight. In the evening, the grim façade is turned into something of great charm – a town of twinkling lights and warm glows. Can you believe it – this is the same mountainside, photographed above but now looking entirely different:



Lights. It is no wonder that we light up streets and houses with additional twinkley things in December. The Christmas gift to somber towns and villages is the addition of lights that, at night, transform the streets into something out of a holiday greeting card. The road that we hiked, wet, encrusted with the grime of the centuries, becomes a story-book path of great loveliness.





We eat dinner late again. We are used to this by now. I write, it takes longer than I want it to, we finally set out, hoping to still find food near midnight and always we find it and always it is tasty. There is never a menu, just food. This time, we eat in a family-run trattoria and our meal of antipasti, pasta, fish and cookies comes to half the price of the previous dinners. I’ll end with a photo of the pasta dish – a staple of the southern table. Pasta, beans and mussels. The common person’s food, warm, nourishing food. A proper ending to a stay in Basilicata.



On Sunday morning we leave for Paris.

from the sole of Italy: guides, saints and automobiles

You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make an Ed do too much “touring” in a week or his internal drive will start sending error messages. And so on this day (I’m speaking of Friday now) I suggest we go into the Regional Park, the greatest, grandest of the south, a mere stone’s throw from the Agriturismo. There, we will hike.

It is a glorious day. Just about sixty, with the sun out – perfect for the outdoor life.

We leave our farm… (did I yet show you the main house where our landowner, Maria, lives? It was once her grandmother’s farm. Here, a corner of it:)



…and we drive into the hill towns.



I wont bore you with how many hill towns we went to...



… before we found one where a local agenzia employee could suggest a “piccolo” hike – a small one, because she said larger ones require a guide. A guide? I have nearly fainted on summits on the Canadian Rockies! Why a guide?

Never mind, we set out on the piccolo hike. Oh, it’s mildly boring at the beginning. Ed is delighted by the cats we encounter…



…I am taken in by the mushrooms up there, in the woods…



…but we are “hiking” on a trail that is close to the village and I can tell that the natural elements aren’t having their full effect on my hiking buddy. Nor on me for that matter.

And then we get lost. I get it. You need a guide because the markings aren’t always there to help you along. Our own trail marker has vanished. Naturally, the path we choose turns out to be the wrong one. Discouraged? Not us! We are cross-country specialists! We have scaled precarious Sicilian mountainsides, we can find the summit of this wee bit of a hump.

We nearly slide down with the granite chips.

Undaunted still, we persevere. Polish peasant stock, I tell you! And by the way, Polish peasant stock can get pretty hot with the exertion of it all. See this – on the summit, down to my tank top, in the middle of December.



The views are magnificent. We are reunited with the trail and the forest is wonderful and the sunlight makes everything look terrific. What more can one ask.



Still, all trails end sooner or later, especially piccolo trails. We leave the forest and pick up random dirt tracks, so that we can experience the hike that much longer. I ask Ed to mark the point where we leave the forest so that we can retrace our steps. He is placing a strategic rock, but I laugh at him and point to someone’s orange peel – more visible by far. (Clearly the message of Hansel and Gretel has been lost on me.)

We walk along the dirt road, enjoying the silence of the hills. Not a total silence. The hills are alive, aren’t they? I hear …dogs barking. Strays? Ed, we must protect ourselves against stray packs of dogs. Look for a stick! Move slowly back! Speak soothingly! I can fend off bears, but stray dogs can be wicked.

Not strays. The bells tell it all. A herdsman appears with his mixed flock…






… stopping to talk to us as we pass. Where are you from? Germany? No, America. Oh… America. Brazil, maybe? No, the United States.

Even if I hand them the continent, they never believe in Europe that I am American. Am I not American? My Polish friends may be the only ones who see me these days as more over there than over here (here being Europe and Poland).

The flock moves forward and the dogs – there must be ten of them – bark at the outliers and it is all so magnificently picturesque…



We turn back. I am searching for the orange peel, but I cannot find it. I am sure we have gone way past the point of reentry. Ed retraces his steps and finds his rock marker. Near it there is merely a crumb of orange peel left. Goats like orange peel. Who knew…

The sun is getting awfully close to the land and so we head back. The mountains take on bluer tones…



…The villagers are stirring up the wood-burning fires for the evening ahead and the smell of burning wood is everywhere.



It’s time for us to return to the Agriturismo. I need to coax some hours of dialup out of the farm phone line.

And it is a very, very slow connection. So that it is ten by the time we set out to dinner. I’ll just say this about our dinner destination: no, signora, it is not 15 minutes from the farm. More like 30 and only when I speed. Moreover, if you recommend a restaurant in the middle of a town that has streets just about as wide as our Smart little rental car and if they twist and turn uphill in a most confusing way – why that’s another thirty minutes of meandering time.

Thank you, kind strangers who escorted us way up to the proper place. Thank you, whatever saint made sure that I did not lose a door or a fender to the houses I brushed ever so lightly with our car. Thank you, good waiter who escorted us back down again.

Basilicata forever!

Dinner? Yes, we ate. Past eleven. No menus again. Just endless plates of appetizers (fish, sausages, spiced an oiled as only the southerners can do it), followed by pasta, followed by grilled fish, salad, dessert. I was not surprised when the check came out to be exactly the same as last night. Such food they have here! Such wonderful food!


with porcini and mussels


grilled, from the sea

from the sole of Italy: from sea, to other shining sea, to table

[cautionary note: it's long, to make up for yesterday. and on dial-up, no less!]

In Italy, between Puglia (the heel) and Calabria (the toe), there is Basilicata – a stretch of sole.

When I moved to the States to finish my studies there, I took the language (so impractical!) of the country I loved from afar – Italy. In my last semester, the teacher gave us Carlo Levi’s Christ stopped at Eboli (the point being, he neglected the south), to read in Italian. It describes the once greatly impoverished (and still significantly more so than elsewhere in Italy), the distant and forgotten land. It describes Basilicata.

This is the region that I have wanted to travel to for a long time. This is where I am right now.

The Wednesday flight, leaving Warsaw, through Paris, through Milan to Bari gets us here after dark. I have good directions on how to find the Agriturismo, the farm stay that I have chosen, but an email explains that Maria (the owner?) is out for the evening. Her dogs will greet us when we arrive, I’m told.

We get out of the car in front of a massive, flower covered building. No fewer than five dogs come bounding toward us, barking wildly. I say hi? rather tentatively. That is enough to put them into fits of ecstasy. They are all over me, they are a welcoming committee on speed, they are insanely friendly.

All fine. Dogs greeted. Now what? On the front door, there is Maria’s cell number in case I have forgotten it. Maria assumes, correctly, that civilized beings will have a cell. Ed’s not a cell person, but I am. My cell works well in the States. My cell is not intended for human use in Europe.

Ed takes out the flashlight and we explore. The dogs follow us. We are the hunters and gatherers with our pack of hounds, in search of…bedrooms. We speculate how long an evening out might be for a Maria from southern Italy.

We hear a car. A man comes forth (who is he? don’t know…), says many things in rapid fire Italian, takes out his cell and now we know we will be taken care of. We will not be abandoned to camp on the doorstep. A Basilicata soul is looking out for us.

Within minutes a young woman – the maid and cook and general keep-us-agriturismo-guests-happy person comes to show us to our room.

The room with a view toward the orange grove…



…and grape vines






(I have yet to find the farm’s olive trees.)


We ask about eating places. You will find something five kilometers down there road, in the small town of Marconia.

It is their cold spell now. Temperatures are dipping to the forties at night. Daytime highs are in the upper fifties. People are bundled up as if fierce arctic winds were blowing through. But they do not give up on their evening on the Square.



It’s a guy thing at this hour. The women are fussing with food. Later on, gender balance will be restored.

Up the street there is a small pizzeria. We sit down to bowls of salad and a mushroom-artichoke-wonder pie. For it is magnificent. Best pizza ever, says Ed. His first reflection on southern Italy. I’m all smiles.

We are incredibly fussed over. The cook brings us a calendar to take home, with huge photos of the pizzas he is tossing in his fists then shoving into the oven. The waiter presents us with a pen with the name of the place and as we leave, he puts down a drink, on the house – a regional herby liquor that warms your entire digestive tract for five hours at least.


the calendar image


the real thing

Welcome to Basilicata.


The next morning we are driving, driving, trying to cover the land between the Ionian Sea and the Adriatic – Puglia, the big fat heel of the shoe that is Italy.

We make too many stops. I know it, but I cannot help it.

In some insignificant town, a market draws a huge crowd. It’s not the cheeses, the shoes, the rugs that make me reach for my camera again and again, it’s the people. Italian animation cannot be photographed well. But I never stop trying. And no one minds. For once, I get the smiles and encouraging shouts.













There isn’t much for the foreign tourist here, in Italy’s heel, at first blush. The land is rocky, dotted with olive trees and nondescript towns built vaguely along Greek lines. The beaches on the western coast are a draw for the locals in the summer season. Now, they are empty of people, not so empty of the litter they left behind.

We stop for a walk in Gallipoli – an ancient city whose old town was once an island.




The timelessness of fishermen mending nets during the lunch hour! I'm hooked. So to speak.






The maze of streets confuses me. I think I am heading one way, but no, I am not. It’s the kind of place where around the corner you are always surprised. Not infrequently, with holiday trimmings.



At two, we understand that we have only a couple of hours of daylight left. When you are rushed, you get lost and so we get lost. It is almost dusk when we reach Finibus Terrae (Land’s End), the very tip of the Italian heel.


Santa Maria di Leuca, the port

There is a monastery, offering terrific views of the water on both sides. We cannot pause for long. I am determined to drive along the reputedly splendid Adriatic coast before you lose sight of all but twinkley lights. But still, will I ever not pause for a cappuccino when the urge strikes?



Outside, the priest shouts a greeting, then turns to chat with a workman. A nun hurries into the church building. The feeling of remoteness is exacerbated by the presence of these three individuals in an open piazza.



At the end there is a single column, with, I am guessing, Santa Maria di Leuca looking as if she cares about this tip of Italy after all.



The drive up along the Adriatic is worth the trip. No beaches here, just rocks and more rocks. The villages are better tended than those on the side of the Ionian. Still, they are off season, empty. The only people we see are the occasional olive grove workers, shaking out the last olives of the season.




The scent of burning twigs and olive leaves is powerful.



But as the sun sets, we turn away from the coast…




Our dinner is at a remote restaurant a few kilometers away from our farm. We are there before nine. Only two other tables are occupied. Is this a bad sign? So many restaurants here are empty. Is it a seasonal thing?

Cassimo, our waiter, takes charge. He puts three bottles of regional wine and asks us to choose one. That is the last choice we are asked to make. We never see a menu or a price. Cassimo just brings food. Small plates of antipasti, a dozen of them, come in from the kitchen, one by one. We cannot finish even half.

A sample:













Next, a tray of raw vegetables with a spiced olive oil and Balsamic for dipping.



Ed asks me to intervene, to suggest mildly that we are full, but I cannot. Cassimo is on a roll. Out comes a huge bowl of spaghetti with clams and prawn. Absolutely delicious.


Cossimo, loading it on

Ed is insistent. If I wont tell Cossimo basta! he will.

Fine. Cossimo, we are full, we cannot eat another course. He nods his head. Americans must not eat much, he is thinking. But when I mention that we will entertain a little sweet something, he perks up. And it begins again:

A bottle of sweet sparkling wine, a plate of fruit…



A plate of cookies…



Napoleons…



Cossimo, enough!

I have offered to pick up the tab for this meal and I am slightly concerned. The wines, the foods, the bad rate of exchange, debtors’ prison, what am I in for?

I look at the bill. Two fixed price meals, it reads. 35 Euros each. The beauty of Basilicata.


the chef


We head back to Agriturismo San Teodoro Nuovo.