Twin Travelling: Cave dwelling is "Trulli" Super

I waited a long time to snap this shot without the myriad of fat people's butt cheeks in the background

The village breakfast sat heavy in my guts. I guess coffee, prosciutto, and home-made jam tart before 9am will do that to a person. Seriously, if you'd told me 2 months ago I'd be back to those kind of unhealthy lows, I would have denied it was possible. Less than a week in Italy, and it's on for young and old. How the hell am I going to get through the next 6? But look, lets save the food discussions for another time. Believe you me, they are worth their own blog.

I just can't accept that meat is a healthy start to the day....

Or cheese for that matter......

Alberobello - land of Tourists and Trulli

Who doesn't love a cone?

Sometimes it's worth detouring totally out of your way for a sight. Other times.....hmmmmm. Don't get me wrong, I love a trulli - they are the result of a masterful craft of dome building excellence. But the actual town of Alberobello ...... and yet, I was unmoved...... While I couldn't help but find it picturesque, I also couldn't help but find it jam-packed with tourists. It was one of those towns that are now more of a tourist attraction than an actual place. Whereas the high plains of Abruzzo was relatively sparsely touristed, the Trulli town of Alberobello was full of them. And before you think it - yes, yes, I am fully aware that I too am a tourist. A tourist who shamelessly visits tourist towns. I am also the kind of tourist who buys calzone's from the popular bakery on the corner, and a gelati, and eats them on a step in the sun - saying "Wow this is amazing" with my mouth full.

I think this family's had more than a calzone and gelati during their Italian vacation

I think my Dad has one of these

But really??? I like to think I'm not exactly your average tourist. I'm not wearing a nerd hat, or a beige t-shirt, grey shorts and thick soled velcro sandals. My bra fits, I have ankles, and I am not carrying a giant camera, with a huge lens, around my neck and sweating profusely. I am also not holding onto a large bottle of lukewarm water that allows me to not spend a cent on cold drinks all day, even though it's boiling hot. I don't have a leftover sticker on my t-shirt from the group tour I took that morning. Neither do I own, or wear, a "fanny pack". But if I think these differences make me better than than "the hoards", I am sorely mistaken. Certainly, I am worse than the masses in the eyes of the locals - at least the hoards buy half a dozen nick knacks from their crappy side-of-the-road tourist junk shops to take back to their grandchildren in Arkansas. I do things like buy nothing, and instead pat a shopkeeper's leg, rather than the dog on the seat next to him, and then embarrassingly stumble away and kick over his drink on the exit. Even worse, I am smug by not thinking I'm a tourist. This then, makes me smug and judgemental...... and still a tourist. But who cares? I still hate them. And I know I'm better, I'm definitely better. Hey, at least I can say "bongiorno" and "gratzie" with a bit of a trill in my accent....ok, that reasoning was pathetic. I'm ashamed I wrote it.

He looks too nice to be mean about....

Just so incredible

Looking like a biblical town

As I mentioned last blog, we were destined for the caves of Matera in Southern Italy (the high inner step of the boot). The entry into Matera was bewildering - it looked like a fairly crappy, rundown, modern town. However, the GPS said 3 minutes until we reached the caves. How could it be? There wasn't a cave in sight. And then it came on. We suddenly entered the historical section of Matera, called the Sassi. Like many European cities and towns, there is an "old city" and a "new city". Often, the "old city is set high and surrounded by a impressive wall. But this was something else. The new city abruptly ended, and hills of dug out caves appeared. These then gave way to a vast canyon with a river below. Across the canyon were more caves, only these appeared uninhabited. At night though, they were lit for effect, which gave a particularly memorable vista, all of them dotted along the upper ridge of the far canyon. Back on "our" side, lively restaurants, busy hotels, and local residents used the caves for living, and making a living. Some had tried their best to transform the caves into whitewashed dwellings on the interior. However, the hotel that we were staying in was the sister hotel of the Sant Stefano Di Sessano village hotel. This is where we had stayed the previous two nights. As was the case in the village, the designers kept the original interior of the caves, and added the modern conveniences as subtly as possible. The effect was magical. I have never in my life experienced anything that comes near to the night we spent as cave dwellers in the Sassi di Matera (The Stones of Matera).

A popular angle

From across the canyon

where the fuck do I plug in my hair straightener?

The caves are said to have been home to the first settlers of Italy, over 9000 years ago. They remained occupied by people until the 1950s, when the inhabitants were forced out by the government due to their extreme poverty, sanitation issues, and most worryingly, a very high infant mortality rate. It doesn't escape my observation, that it is a sad sort of irony that the original residents were forced to leave against their will due to dire poverty (despite claiming they were descendants of people who had lived there for millenia); while now their homes serve as accommodation for people with bucks. Although it wasn't an immediate transition (sixty years have passed since the former occupants lived there), it still seems, in a way though, like they were forced out to make way for the tourists. Fucking tourists. Like I've said before, they fuck everything up. And they're ugly.

Getting ready for bed

No stone floor and hessian blanket for us

Cosy Valentina

Incredible bath experience

But poor displaced cave dwellers aside (I'm sure they have a rich, full life now....!!!????) - I thoroughly enjoyed every single second of staying in a cave. It was so thrilling. Really. Just amazing. After the girls had snuggled down in their perfect white cotton sheets for the night, and Chalks was snoring in the star position on our bed, I ran myself a bath and lay back contemplating life. Or not. Actually I nodded off and slipped under the water. Inhaling water while asleep is a terrifying experience. It's times like that I can really identify with Whitney Houston. Apart from being an African American icon with an incredible voice, a violent husband, millions of fans and a penchant for heroin. And dead. I forgot about dead. So, I guess my near drown was actually what made me contemplate life in the end. Whitney's and mine. Anyway, I made it to bed, and awoke many hours later to the multi-holed roof of the cave on first eye-open - it was surreal. I decided then and there I was going to live in a cave forever. And I told Chalks this. He said "Yeah, it's great, apart from there's no windows". Once I realised that this was in fact true, I began to feel claustrophobic, and burst out the door into the bright sunlight. So blinded was I, that I didn't realise I was standing in the middle of about ten Germans taking a group tour of the region. I had also neglected to look in the mirror before my departure. This was a mistake.

There is no right in this heinous shot

What was even more of an error in judgement, was the decision to wash my hair the night before with the locally handmade shampoo. I should know better, but the bottle was so nice. By morning my locks had the consistency of fairy floss. Honestly, it felt like I'd washed it in a mixture of honey and melted candle wax. In fact that's probably what it was. I tried to work with it, a comb, some water - it was horrific. But it did bring me to a greater understanding of why cave people always have shit hair. I mean seriously. Every time you see those cave people movies - their hair is always a total disaster. The outfits are usually ok. Animals skins, draped nicely. The cave girls usually look pretty hot from the neck down. Before now, I just wasn't buying the messy hair. I was like "Look, if they can craft that tiger skin into a sexy bikini top, there's no reason why they can't run a twig through their hair or something, for fuck's sake"....but now I get it. It's the bloody homemade shampoo. That unsuccessful concoction would give Kate Middleton a bad hair day (They really need to work on their shampoo technique, and I'm putting that in the suggestion box). At least inside a cave it's pretty dark. If you stick to the corners, and only search for berries at dusk, you could pull off the look. Unfortunately for me, standing in the middle of a bunch of overly groomed people - who were annoyingly ready for a big day of sightseeing - it was a look that couldn't be pulled off. I guess I should have pretended to be a live exhibit or something. Where's a lion skin mini when you need one?