Private Dancer - An Unhurried Stroll Around Matera
A short post but lots of pic's.
A day off the bikes today in Matera but still a good workout for stair climbing muscles. We had a 'sleep in' this morning and then set off to see the Duomo and the MUSMA.
I can't stress enough how nice it is being here in November. There are still tourists around but they number in the hundreds, not the thousands, and if you get up and out to see stuff before 10 am, you pretty much have the place to yourself.
We did a pretty good walk around the Sassi yesterday so we concentrated on more indoor stuff today. The Duoma (main cathedral) was quite impressive - great ceiling frescos and some active renovation going on that was more or less open to the public. Must be the engineer in me that likes to see this sort of stuff.
The highlight for both K and I though was the MUSMA - Museum of Modern Sculpture. For us this was magical. First, most of it is set in a series of 7 interconnected caves. The ambience this creates, ancient cave juxtaposed with modern sculpture, was amazing. Second, I'll remind everyone that this is November, we saw 4 other people in the 2 hours we were there. This is one of the major sites in Matera, so it's not like we were at an obscure gopher museum! Having the place to ourselves ... not even staff wandering around keeping an eye on you ... added immeasurably to the magic.
I'll let the pics speak to the rest save to say that we had a great, but much more casual, dinner at Annina 1937. It really did feel like a family meal and we had a refreshing walk afterwards to take in the last night views of the Sassi.
Back on the bikes and a rode off to the the east coast to Monopli tomorrow!
Song of the Day , When the Night Feels My Song by Bedouin Sound Clash.
.. just the right song for today as I dragged K out for me to take the last few night pics of the Sassi!
cute little chicken mascots were being hawked every where. Some mass produced, some hand made like these guys
an alter under renovation .. did not capture it in this pic, but off to the side is a workbench with hammers, saws and lunch buckets ... very interesting juxtaposition
not a sculpture ... but K noticed that there many braille signs ... and no signs that said 'do not touch' ... must mean that they encourage the blind to touch and interact with the sculptures ... nice
... and the explanation ... turned out to be a quite moving and interesting exhibit .... the dirt just gets you reading and thinking about the stories of the people from where it came from
...and more ! Given all the cacti we saw, it made the cave and associated story we saw yesterday about snow storage in the Sassi all the more remarkable ... it's November now and I can't imagine snow in this place .... but I guess it happens
Lyle McLeodTo Karin KaarsooI didn’t write up anything about it, but one of the caves we were in was used for communal snow storage. It sounded like quite the process to store the precious stuff whenever it fell. Reply to this comment 5 years ago
Our (very small) hotel is across the Sedile square from the local music conservatory. It's quite nice to hear the practice sessions coming from the building. Took this shot of a student leaving their lesson ... plus two other people in the square ... come here in November ... in August there would be 300 people in the same shot!
