Cammino Materano Via Peuceta Day 8: Masseria La Fiorita - Matera

Marialaura of Masseria La Fiorita served up the best breakfast we've had on the Cammino Materano: bread with homemade jam and honey, cake, and milk from the farm's own cows, with coffee made in the biggest moka pot I've ever seen!

Marialaura's partner Pasquale took a group photo of us with our hostess outside the hostel, then loaded us all into his van and drove us back to the point where we had left the main trail of the Cammino Materano to take the variant leading to Masseria La Fiorita. At the junction of the two routes, the shorter, more direct 17 km route to Matera and the longer, 30 km route, Mariella, Francesca and I parted ways with Daniela, who had decided to take the longer, more scenic route. 

The signpost where the two routes split

The 17 km route from the Sanctuary of Picciano to Matera

Francesca, Mariella and I took the shorter route. It's a total of 17 km from the Sanctuary of Picciano to Matera, including the 3.5 km downhill stretch from the Sanctuary that we had already walked the previous day, so we had only 13.5 km remaining to walk to the city centre. We calculated that this would leave us plenty of time and energy to explore the city of Matera in the afternoon. 

The first part of the walk was very pleasant, on a dirt track through the fields with only the occasional tractor for company. 

We passed close by the ravine of the Torrente Gravina, the stream that runs through Gravina and all the way to Matera, creating the canyon that makes the two towns so spectacular. There seemed to have been a brush fire in the bottom of the ravine recently, and many of the trees had been scorched, with blackened trunks and orange leaves.

After this spectacular stretch we came to the industrial zone that makes this shorter variant less popular with walkers. On a Sunday morning it was silent and deserted.

We were walking on concrete, but with no traffic at all. After only a few kilometres we left the industries behind and returned to a more bucolic landscape of olive groves and small houses with vegetable plots before beginning the long climb to Matera.

At the top of the hill is the new town, constructed when the old homes dug into the rock in the ancient town centre were expropriated by the Italian government after the Second World War, when the world became aware of the unhealthy conditions in which the people were living at the time. The inhabitants of the old town centre were forcibly evicted and moved into newly built blocks of flats on the outskirts of the town, reminiscent of British council flats, where they could benefit from modern conveniences such as indoor plumbing and heating. 

Better than a cave

For several decades thereafter, Matera had the biggest abandoned historic centre in Europe. It was not until the 1980s that people began renovating the buildings in the city centre and moving back in; there are now about 4000 people living in the centre of the old town, as well as plenty of vacation rentals and luxury hotels. Modern air conditioning, heating and dehumidification systems have made the cave dwellings more comfortable, and you can now pay up to a thousand euros a night for the privilege of sleeping in a grotto that was considered unsuitable for human habitation only fifty years ago!

I will write more about this unique city in tomorrow's entry; for now, suffice it to say that we arrived safe and sound, found our own cave dwelling for the next two days, and celebrated the completion of our Cammino Materano with a nice cold beer! 

Junction for Masseria La Fiorita - Matera by the shorter route 13.5 km

The 30 km route from the Sanctuary of Picciano to Matera

Daniela took the longer route into Matera; here is my translation of her description of her day!

The longer of the two versions of the final stage in the Cammino Materano takes you in a big semi-circle around the city of Matera, so that you can view it in the distance from different angles. 

The first part is entirely flat, crossing a large agricultural area with very few houses. For more than an hour it follows an abandoned old road, now used only by the inhabitants of those few houses and the people who work in the fields. The old road runs more or less parallel to the new road crossing the big white bridge, a modern construction that stands out in the landscape even from a distance.

Many of the farmhouses have been abandoned, but the land appeared to be well-cared-for, ploughed ready for seeding new crops. Even on a Sunday, there were tractors at work ploughing the soil, tracing the lines in the earth that give the landscape its characteristic appearance. 

The path is an easy one, even when it begins to climb, and the landscape is highly various, alternating fields with olive groves. In some places it runs parallel to the ravine of the Bradano River, so that you can step off the path by only a few metres to look deep down into these steep canyons, similar to the one in whose walls the city of Matera is carved.

After proceeding up and down some rather steep hills, the trail brought me to the Oasis of San Giuliano, a WWF nature reserve created when the Bradano River was dammed to irrigate the farmland, creating an artificial lake which is an ideal habitat for water fowl such as herons and cranes. 

The Oasis is about one third of the way to Matera. It looks rather out of place among the fields, with all its pine and eucalyptus trees. At one time, this area was under the sea: the Ionian and Adriatic Seas were one, and only the highest ground was above water. Walking on the shores of the lake, it is still possible to find fossilised seashells, and low water levels recently revealed the remains of a whale dating back to more than a million years ago: the world’s biggest fossilised whale from the Pleistocene era.

The lake has a beach of compact sand, particularly broad this year as the water level has fallen due to drought. It’s the perfect place to take a break in the shade, and is a popular destination for locals enjoying a day out in a natural setting.

Upon leaving the Oasis the path goes back into the sunshine; luckily it is on a dirt road, rather than the pavement, because by this time of day it was getting very warm, and I seemed to be getting farther away from the city rather than closer! After four hours of walking I came to the turn-off for the Criptadel Peccato Originale, referred to as the "Sistine Chapel in a cave" because of its early medieval frescoes. But walking to the crypt would have added an extra 4 kilometres, and it is only open to visitors who have booked a guided tour, so unfortunately I had to continue on my way. 

Occasionally I would come around a bend and feel that I was coming closer to Matera, but then another bend in the road would take me farther away again. One of these took me down to the Gravina to ford the stream. Luckily Marialaura of Masseria La Fiorita had advised us to take our shoes off, even though the water level is low; soaking your feet in cold water after such a long walk is a wonderful feeling!

 

The river is another great place for a rest in the shade, before continuing on along the path through fields, in full sunshine.

The landscape offered nothing to attract the eye other than the rolling hills. Then Matera appeared at the end of the road, seen from a completely new angle! High up on the top of the hill were white buildings in modern style and a large construction with a red volume in the middle, the city hospital. The final long climb up to the city is along the hospital wall, where I felt grateful to be on the outside and not on the inside… Then the path finally comes out right at the entrance to the city of Matera, with a welcome sign visible to walkers and motorists  alike. 

 

Another 600 or 700 metres brought me right into the city centre, on Via Casalnuovo, with a view over the Sassi, and specifically the oldest part of the city, referred to as Sasso Caveoso: a spectacle that is even more welcome after walking such a long way!

Just one more hill remained to be climbed, up the stairs to the Cathedral of the Madonna della Bruna, the highest point in the city, where the two alternative routes for the final stage in the Cammino Materano come together! 

Santuario di Picciano - Matera by the scenic route 30 km