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The first stop in our "Post War" tour of southern Italy began in Andria. This town is known to have the narrowest street in the world (see photo for this blog. It has a nice medieval center which is a mixture of Arab, African and European building / road patterns. Seems everyone wants to think their way is best... huh? Unfortunately for us this town will be remembered for our newest life lesson. That is (and take note) when checking in to what you think is a quiet business hotel always (I mean always) check to see if there is a school group checked in as well. We learned the hard way while, ear plugs firmly in place, we listened to teenage girls giggle, slam doors, scream and run up and down stairs until around 3AM. Adult supervision ain't what it used to be
Wearily we plodded forth towards Alberabelllo (just in the heal of Italy). This is in the heart of Trulli country. Now a Trulli is actually a stone house that looks a lot like the huts we saw in Africa, complete with a kind of rock top knot. Seems that in days of old no one wanted to pay taxes to the king...Huh? If you had a home you had to pay taxes so, when all the King's men came to check out your abode you just knocked it down. No house.... no taxes. The Trulli are made of flat stones piled one on top of the other in a cone shape. Larger stones are used as shelves inside and they even had a method of indenting the stones to allow access to the roof (stairs). Every time they had to knock them down they came up with new renovation ideas. Kind of like old time home improvement shows. Anyway, when the time came where the taxes were not as steep the locals had grown accustomed to the homes and just decided to keep them. Now, however, they were able to put plaster on the top of the roof and on the inside to assist in keeping them clean.
We found ancient homes in fields as well as moden ones still being used today. They are very practical and I can say that with authority as we stayed in one for three nights. Cool in the summer and (still) cool in the winter....however I'm sure they would heat up and hold the heat if we had a good fireplace in ours.
Took a couple of day trips around the area. Ate seafood at a restaurant along the Adriatic after a day of sightseeing in the Trulli area one day. Today we drove south west to a town called Matera which has it's own amazing history.
In the area around Matera as well as the city itself a number of different sects settled over the years., Muslims, Greeks, Greek Orthodox and Christians all took the opportunity to move in to caves and live out their lives. The Muslims actually made it her from Sicily when they were kicked out....how the found their way here beats me. A number of natural caves existed then it seems they began to carve more caves in to areas that had been used as rock quarries. What exists now is a hodge podge collection of cave and brick and tile. The older buildings are completely stone (like some of the amazing stone churches with painted frescoes still visible) while others use part of the stone for foundation and wall while building up the rest with brick and stone. More home improvement techniques.
As you drive through the countryside you see more towns with remnants of these stone structures as well as the odd structure out in a field.
Mass migration and fear of persecution have brought an intermingling of techniques that still continues to amaze me. We saw churches carved in stone in Ethiopia and in Jordan. The one we went through here is just as amazing (though if you ask me Petra will always win out).
Tomorrow we head towards Taranto and south to Sibari for a couple of nights.
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