Can you say Castellaneta?

October 8, 2024

We slept a bit better last night (yay!) and had our suitcases downstairs at the appointed time. They later were whisked to our next hotel, and waiting in our rooms. I could get used to this.

Matera is a hilltop town, so we descended for more than 5 km. This is called "good planning". Start high, end low.

The further we got from Matera, the less traffic we saw. We did, however, stay on this fairly busy road (no bike trail) for quite some time. The scenery was "meh", as the fields were fallow for the most part, and we saw very little signs of civilization. It is extremely dry - Marjory said she expected to see tumbleweeds soon.

Checking the gps. There are towns here, right?

We made a long curve for about 10 km around this hilltop castle, and we were praying that this was not our destination, as it would be a fearsome climb. We are heading to a place that sounds like it has a castle after all.

We never got closer to it, just kept winding around it.

Meanwhile, between towns, we were always on paved roads. For the most part they were decent roads, and not too many cars. Of course, the few that we did see would be going about 80 kph whizzing by us - but they always pulled quite a ways over to give us room. I think most people here are bikers too.

We did enter a town called Ginosa, where our gps suggested we could get some lunch. It was another "hilltop town" and we climbed about 300m (vertical) to get to the old town.

Probably pretty when lit up and night, but SO not worth that climb!

The place the gps had suggested turned out to be really more of a bar with several patrons happily sipping their beverages outside around noon. Marjory had a coke, I had a water and a croissant, and off we went, back down the other side of the town.

Most of the roads are lined with stone fences, kind of like you see in Scotland. But you don't see too many fig trees in Scotland....

This part of the world is famous for olive oil and we saw lots of olive groves planted, both new and old gnarly trees on large estates.

Olive groves everywhere in this dry country.

The next hilltop town we seemed to be skirting, but the streets became alleys, the alleys became barely wide enough to wheel our bikes through. Lots of twists and turns. Finally Marjory took a turn with the gps after I took too many wrong turns. Each wrong turn is painful because you have climbed up a hill, then find that no, you need to go back down. Then you realize that you should not have gone that far back down....

We finally were free of Laterza, and were back on the lonely roads. It had become very windy today, and for most part it was coming from the side, not directly into our faces. It was quite strong (25kph? sustained) and seemed to be coming from the ocean direction. At least we know why they have these here.....

Notice though that there is nothing in the fields. We saw very few crops, they must be between plantings. Strangely the soil was not blowing around with that strong wind. We saw just one crop, and I don't know what it is - anybody? I am sure it is high in iron and vitamin C.

We came to the turnoff to our hotel, somewhat mysterious because there is nothing out here.

At least it isn't a dark and stormy night...

And then you have almost a 2km ride along multi-century old olive trees to come to a wonderfully appointed oasis.

They knew exactly who we were as we arrived and walked us to our room where our suitcases were waiting.

The lady used some translation app on her phone to talk to us, which worked great. She said there is an interpretive walk at 6, then dinner at 7. Showers first!

Today's ride: 57 km (35 miles)
Total: 57 km (35 miles)

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