Cammino Materano Via Peuceta Day 2: Bitetto - Cassano delle Murge

Out of the coastal plains and up into the Murgia plateau!

We climbed slowly but steadily to an elevation of 400 metres above sea level. That may not sound like much, especially spread over 27 kilometres, but the difference was enough to completely change the look of the land and the vegetation by the end of the day. 

We walked through vast expanses of olive groves, with an occasional almond orchard or vineyard for variety.

Here and there we came across a rural construction in ruins, from the big old stone farmhouse of Torre del Marchese to the little dry stone huts with conical roofs known as trulli. One of them had prickly pear plants growing on the roof! 

Wildflowers were everywhere: little purple cyclamens and bright yellow crocuses, which I normally associate with spring. I was not expecting to see so many blooms in October! 

But what I really was not expecting to see was a friend riding along the trail on her bicycle! Imagine my amazement when, hearing something coming up behind, I turned around to see Agnieszka on her bike, with her little dog Tiffany riding in the basket!

Agnieszka walked with me on the Vignacastrisi - Tricase stage of the Via Francigena last month, and through she had mentioned that she would be doing the Cammino Materano on her bicycle, her dates were different from ours, so I hadn't been expecting to see her. 

But her plans changed and so once again our paths crossed, she on her bicycle and I on foot, just like the first time we met at a drinking fountain by the Via Francigena last year! 

I am beginning to think Agnieszka is actually my guardian angel and will pop up somewhere along the way every time I come walking in the south! 😅

By this time we were approaching Cassano delle Murge, happy to be nearing our lodgings after a long day of walking. But before entering the town we paid a visit to the Sanctuary of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built over the cave where a painting of the Virgin is said to have miraculously appeared on the rock around the year 1250. 

From the sanctuary I had a fantastic view of the coastline I had walked along a month earlier with my father, between Bari and Mola di Bari. 

We left the sanctuary behind and walked the final kilometres into the town of Cassano delle Murge, where our hostess Sara was waiting in the square to show us the way to our little apartment on the ground floor of her home. A Casa della Nonna, as she calls her bed & breakfast, is in a typical stone cellar with a vaulted ceiling, and has four single beds, a bathroom and a kitchen. Everything we needed! 

Our new friends Maria Teresa and Maria were lodged in the room upstairs from ours, and after taking a walk around the town we met them for dinner. 

Our restaurant, Pizzeria al Vecchio Arco, was just the sort of place we had been looking for. We ordered the pilgrim menu, and the first thing we were served was the local specialty: the rare cece nero, a small black local variety of chickpea abounding in fibre as well as iron and other minerals, cooked with farro (spelt), mushrooms and onions. 

Then there were puréed fava beans with chicory, a dish served frequently in Puglia and one of my absolute favourites! 

The list of "appetisers" continued until we were so stuffed we couldn't do justice to the main course, pasta with chickpeas (regular white ones this time). This pilgrim menu centring around legumes and vegetables, "accidentally vegan", was just the thing after a long day of walking among the olive groves, without any villages along the way where we could stop for refreshments! 

Bitetto - Cassano delle Murge 27 km