Matera

 15,300 steps and none of them horizontal

Woke up and heard to rain yet, I was slow moving so Andre headed out to take some pictures. He wasn't gone long when he came back to say it wasn't raining and lets go for a walk before breakfast.

Matera is as much fun putting the map away and just walking, you will get lost, but you will suddenly find something that looks familiar. The streets are tiny, mostly pedestrian, and many many steps. Today we heard musicians warming up in a couple of different spots, disappointed there are no concerts while we are here.

Back to our AIRBNB for brunch then head out again, we are hoping for at least another hour before the rain really starts. We have a plan, but that kind of falls apart as we again just are enjoying the walking. We came across a cave church and decided to purchase a 3 cave church pass. We did eventually find all 3 churches, the paintings from the 1300s to the 1500s on the walls are still quite intact. Unfortunately no pictures allowed. We did notice that the '70s brought a lot of vandalism, many of the mantles and statues and even one famous painting went missing in the 70's.

The rain was starting to come down, and I wasn't sure how great my 5 Euros umbrella would hold up so we were heading home when we were approached by a man to come and visit his caves and little church. I am sure this man was somehow related to Mike LeBlanc that does our landscaping and snow removal. Lots of laughs. He has a daughter that is 9 years old that lives in Toronto that he showed us pictures of, he was very excited that we were Canadian. He was excited to show us his 5 dollar Canadian bill he carries in his wallet. He gave us a “deal” to enter, 5 Euro each, since we were Canadian. It was interesting, the cave was one that was lived in and a recreation of the home had been done. It was a small room that had a bed, a little table, cooking fireplace, a spot for the donkey and that was it, for a family of 5. The table was converted to sleeping at night.

After our tour with “Mike” we headed back to the apartment as it is now really raining. The cobblestones were slippery when it started raining, but now that they are soaking wet it is not so slippery. We ran into quite a few school field trips in our wanderings today, but really not too many tourists around.

A quiet afternoon, and stayed in for supper tonight.

This morning I turned right out of the Airbnb and ended up at the main square

Can't get enough of these views

A few vegetables sellers at the market. Very reasonable prices

Some many churches

There must be a story here as we have seem more like these in other cities

Panorama from the Duomo

Every view point is different but always amazing

Cobblestones steps everywhere

Love the rooftop tiles

We need these in NB

One of the cave church we visited with caves in the background

From the far end of old town

What used to be cave house

We were not allowed to take pictures inside the cave churches

Caves across the gorge

Another cave church we visted

So MANY steps

A few pieces of art around town

The 3rd cave church we visited

Took a quick picture in the church cellar.

At the house cave tour we did

cistern to collect water for the year during rainy season

Another cave church

was in a movie, we think, the guide's English was not great

The cave house

The kitchen

One room house where the donkey also slept in

Was a church but change into wine making with the drain coming out in the later. Good thing there was English writing 

Around 2PM we call it quit as it was raining