Matera

The last meal in Italy was in Bari and it was hilarious, herewith a sample of some of the dishes and we promise they are word for word off the menu. The chap who created these dishes could rival Heston Blumenthal for originality but could he find all the ingredients? Carpaccio of mushrooms, rucola and nuisance- Carpaccio of melon and fig trees with patch in parma- Tagliolino with velvety to the black hypocrite and you escape veal- Spaghetti to the rock cliff- Laughed venere by black grain with tails of mazancolle to the oriental- Emince of ox to the porky ones- Lobster and Greek crickets- This was not a Chinese restaurant and after we stopped laughing Clare settled for the Risotto of shrimp tails to the champagne as opposed to Risotto with perfume of the Adriatic and I had fresh pasta with brandy and tomatoes and little things which must have been the porky ones! On long trips like this one it is sometimes more interesting to visit places with no previous research, a case in point was Matera, close to the southern coast in the 'arch of the boot' of Italy. This area was inhabited by one of the earliest civilisations, older than the places in Sicily we have just left. The Sassi people lived for centuries in caves, some natural, others carved out of the porous stone, and continued to do so until 1956 when a new law forced them to vacate their cave houses for reasons of hygiene. Although they had developed ingenious methods of digging tanks and channelling rainwater there were no toilet facilities and they shared accommodation with the animals. The town has a very biblical feel with the holes in the rocks and many houses dug deep into the cliffs as was the dining area and part of our room at Hotel D' Angelo, a unique place to stay.

Many religious Italian films have been made here and Hollywood also used the area for King David and as Jerusalem in Mel Gibson's controversial 'Passion of Christ'.

At the top of the old town is a masterpiece of hydraulic engineering, a cistern dug entirely by hand measuring 5 stories deep and almost as long as a football field, impressive.