Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/debstah1/sets/72157626673046975/
10:15pm: Another long day! Woke up around 8, took a nice long bath, had a breakfast of cappuccino, cake, croissant, and cantaloupe. Met Angelo at 9:30 and walked around town a bit. Toured the castle from the 11th century that was used by Frederick II and is now home to a small Archaeological museum with a few artifacts found in tombs about 5km away. Unfortunately it didn't become a preserved national site until the early 1900s, so thieves took a lot of the best artifacts. Also wandered through the historical center and in the lovely duomo.
Drove out to the modern town to a small mozzarella shop, where the two guys were making all different shapes and sizes of cheese, burrata, etc. One of the two men was hilarious, joking he should move to the US to open a mozzarella shop. They gave me a little knot of a piece still warm and it was so delicious - salty and chewy and stringy.
Then we set off for the countryside to Tenuta Viglione, a winery making all-natural primitivo (the famous grape/wine in this area) and a few others. I tasted a couple of typical red wines of this region and Angelo talked about the process. he is very passionate about wine production and explained that for a good wine, the bottling materials alone cost 80 euro cents. So if you're only paying a few euros/dollars for a bottle, it can't be very good (looking at you, Two Buck Chuck). And how big wineries will "fix" their vintages if a harvest is bad by adding chemicals, sulfites, and so-called "magic dust" - whereas a small really good winery wouldn't do that.
Drove back to Gravina for a ridiculous lunch of a million (seriously) antipasto plates consisting of multiple cheeses, salads, meats, and on and on. then meat and potatoes, and they wanted to give us pasta and fruit too. Sufficiently stuffed to the gills, we set off for Matera, a town just across the Puglia border in Basilicata that's famous for prehistoric cave dwellings (Sassi) that were then built up into houses and used until 1952, when the Italian government declared them illegal and unsafe and made the people move to free modern housing (if you saw them you'd understand why).
From afar, the Sassi are beautiful and up close they are fascinating. One of them that was lived in right until the end is opened to the public with the original furniture and tools. Shockingly enough, they also lived with their animals - mules or horses, chickens, even a pig. And that's why they were made illegal. Then we wandered up a million stairs and up throughout the old center for awesome views.
Came back to gioia and I wandered around, found an ATM and visited the little shop across the street for some ham, salami, and bread. had a yummy dinner up on the B&B's cute little balcony and went out for a gelato. Now going to bed because tomorrow will be a long day!
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