8 May

Awake reluctantly at 7 and up by 7:20, I was prepared and had the car packed by just after 8. The task in hand was to find where I was to have breakfast, which was the bar the couple own. I locked everything up, then drove down past the train station, then over the line into the main street. I found the station entrance and opposite where … two bars! I parked and went into the most likely one, waved the card and, it was the right one. It had the betting equipment set up in two places and a few tables inside and more outside. One of the men behind the counter confirmed I was after the toast and ham (memo to self: draw pictures or otherwise indicate exactly what I want, as toast with ham became toasted ham sandwiches, although they tasted all right with vegemite over one side of each). Out came the tea and again the dinky cup and milk jug – it must be that it is assumed tea is like strong coffee and only taken in small doses.
While eating breakfast I glanced through the paper – some of the articles it was easy to get the gist of, while others proved more elusive. I couldn’t find the comics page (either there isn’t one or someone had already souvenired it) but I did notice that in car advertisements, fuel consumption was quoted in km/L, not the L/100 km we are forced to endure in Australia.
After I finished, I had to wait for Clara to arrive to do the paperwork. This is the second time my licence has been held overnight, and details noted, rather like the French did in “The Day of the Jackal”, but I hardly ever even had anyone ask my name in France (EXCEPT AT FORMULE1!). Clara arrived after I had seen the local Carabiniere have his coffee and a few others pop in for a beer for breakfast. I paid and left her a photo DVD – but forgot to add that she could arrange for any children she taught to email with children in Australia through me.
I headed out and had chosen a town called Catanzaro-Lido to head towards. It struck me that it may be an interesting seaside place, as there was another town of the same name only a few kilometres inland. The run there was uneventful, except for me making asides at some driving techniques shown. There, the day was pleasant, there were some already on the beach (coarse granitic sand, not too pleasant to rest on) and there were quite a few on the promenade. I walked around a little and saw a grandfather looking after a little boy, who seemed more interested in pulling grass out a few blades at a time than looking at the sea or cars going by.
I did notice an Internet café, but it wasn’t open, neither were any places that looked likely for a meal, so I set sights for Matera, picked out simply because it was inland and therefore different from what I had been travelling through for the last day or so.
Now things became more interesting. The SatNav told me to turn left at a certain intersection – but there was no intersection, because of road works. It wouldn’t give up, and kept trying to get me back to that intersection, even when I was twenty kilometres down the road. I thought I would fool it by going to a supermarket and getting something to eat, then asking it to direct me to Matera again from there. But I couldn’t find a supermarket! I cruised two largish towns, hoping that like France the supermarkets would be on the periphery, with clear signage – no luck! I asked the SatNav – it believed the nearest one was over sixty kilometres away! I ended up just reprogramming for Matera again and this time got different directions, which ended up putting me a the far end of the road it had originally wanted me to go down. However, getting there was an experience – 40 km/hr work limits and I was overtaken by everything even though I was doing 70. Then, on a downhill section, I (and a few others) were overtaken over double lines on blind corners. Twice I thought I would have to use my first-aid skills as cars came within a centimetre or so of having a head-on collision at about 200 km/hr.
Finally I got to Matera, leaving my nerves somewhere back on the road. I was directed to the Tourism Office, only to miss it and have to park, then walk back to it (and passed it on foot because the signs are so obscure). I got a list of B&Bs and rang one, and even though he only spoke Italian, we somehow agreed I was going to stay the night. Finding it was interesting because the number was 58 and the street numbers went from 54 to 64. After asking, I found that 58 was a block of flats about fifty metres back from the road – and with plenty of parking, after I had again manoeuvred the car into a spot not much longer than itself. Then, of course, there were eight buttons at the door with no indication of which was the one I was after. I knocked on the door and a head popped out of an upstairs window, and that was the one I was after. I had a look in, agreed to take it and got a fistful of keys, then went out to look around Matera. I looked for a supermarket (no luck) and then went to look over the Sassi area and the rock churches.
Parking is an interesting experience, and Matera was no exception to the Italian rule. Cars parked at odd angles, on corners across footpaths, double and triple parked, but I decided to play safe an use a parking lot near the Sassi area. I regret to say that I did an “Italian job” to get there, pushing into uncontrolled intersections to get across and cutting across and into traffic (hint: choose to cut in front of a new expensive car and they will give way rather than risk a dent).
I walked down and came across a church dedicated to St Francis of Assisi, and when the area had been redeveloped, the abbey it was in went while the church stayed, but the block of flats behind runs into the wall of the church. I looked around and was given a personal tour by a fellow who then requested payment for his explanations – I think I got taken again!
Then I walked around the rock area, got a ticket and looked through three rock-hewn churches, and one grotto which was an old Sassi house. The Sassi lived there until the 1960s when an act of Parliament removed them. The churches had been developed over periods of up to four hundred years, but little of the artwork or detail remains. However I thought it ironic that while walking through the current houses there, I could quite clearly hear “rock” music – of the Elvis Presley kind! Again it struck me that a tourist sight is still home to someone when I saw three little girls with Barbie sets and one teaching the others how to dance.
After the time of looking through, I went back to the car, paid for my stay and then drove like a native to get back to where I was staying. It took five minutes less for me, but longer for the ones I cut off.
I went up to my room (shared facilities, but as I’m the only one here, it doesn’t matter), put all my stuff into Room 3 (of four), did my computer work and then went to bed. No open networks I can piggyback onto, so I’ll have to wait until I can find a place.