The drive to Matera was interesting, and we arrived in time for a tour of the Sassi in Italian since there was no English tour (we did well and understood most of the tour). Matera was first inhabited thousands of years ago in the rock caves in the valleys that run through it. A couple of hundred years b.c. the people made houses by digging into the tufa rock. There are two sides of the canyon that make a beautiful setting for these Sassi. Although it is a beautiful and interesting place, the living conditions inside were terrible. The humidity caused problems with mold and therefore the people had health problems. It also was incredibly crowded as families had only a one or two room dwelling that they shared with animals. For these reasons, the city of Matera evacuated people living in the Sassi in 1952 to 1960 and gave them housing in the new city. Now the Sassi are either empty (owned by the city but have no one to sell them to) or they are used for shops and restaurants (tourism). There are also a couple of hotels that have improved the conditions and about 350 families living in the Sassi. The new portions of the town, of course, have lots of hotels and all that. Just the old part of town has dealt with these issues. This article has a good description, and this is the official site.
When you look at the pictures we took, you can see how you feel like you are stepping back in time. This is probably why it was chosen as the setting for the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ." I really need to see that film now!
Anyway on to the photos...these first three are some shots that we took when we first were walking down into the Sassi (means rock in Italian) on our tour. The "roads" (walkways) are built on tops of houses. You don't really notice until you are walking right next to a chimney :)
Aaron with the city in the background. The portion of the town that has tower is not built into the rock but is the old city center that is built on top of the rock (called civita).
Me in front of the valley.
Aaron took some really interesting pictures of this cat, but this was the one I liked the best.
Our first attempt at a self portrait with the DSLR.
Another shot in the area of the sassi. The rock sticking up is natural, and there is a church built into it.
Here is a shot into the valley with the river below. There are three crosses at the top. There are caves that you can see, and I think they were natural (don't really remember). They were used for living at one point, and there was also a church in one.
Same view but more sky. We cropped out some of the valley to make the focus on the sky. Note that I didn't do any tuning of the colors :)
This is the inside of a sassi church that we went into. It was cut into the rock so you wouldn't know that it was a church. This was a special thing to see with the tour.
We were walking through the town on the tour, and yes, someone had their undies hanging over the street. Not exactly the ideal place to dry your clothes in my opinion!
Aaron and I with the town.
Just Aaron. I chose this one because you can see the sky changing. There was a really, really strong wind that was blowing some dark clouds in. We got a little sprinkle but were lucky that it mostly passed us by. The wind was really terrible though.
Back down into the sassi.
An interesting shot from a road into the valley.
We took the car and drove across to the other side of the valley where the crosses and caves were to get some shots back into the city. The weather was giving some cool light. Here is one shot back into town. We cropped out the bottom portion to focus on the sky.
We walked around, crawled on some rocks, checked out some caves, and followed a trail down a little bit (and tried to survive the wind). This is one church in the caves.
Aaron on top of a rock (it was big). I took some pictures that had a lot of potential to be cool with the city in the background. Unfortunately, Aaron was dark in every one. Yeah, I messed that one up!
A picture back into the city with a little better light. Unfortunately, it really wasn't ideal light when we were over there. We did pretty well considering.
Me with the sassi in the background and some interesting clouds.
Similar picture but with some brighter lighting.
Me jumping inside a cave. Yeah, Aaron is good :) I really like this.
Aaron with 2 of the 3 crosses and the city behind him. I would have gotten all three but there were some other people that I didn't want in the photo.
Saturday, March 22, 2008, Matera
1 comment:
For anybody who is interested, the photo of Kelly and I with Matera in the background, about half way down, is the last photo taken before "The Great Bounce"
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