Pollino National Park & Matera

We had a short stay in Tropea by design, it was just too far to go from Siracusa to Matera.  So we set off from Tropea making our slow journey north toward Matera hoping for a nice lunch and hike in Pollino National Park, Italy's largest park, on the way.  The drive was uneventful other than my passing a truck, with a van appearing around a curve and headed at us, and guardrails all around, it was FAR too close let me tell you; but Kathie had her eyes covered which is probably why she hasn't killed me.  We headed toward Rotonda, the National Park HQ, and a nice lady hooked us up with a park map and suggested a couple areas for a short/couple hour hike.  We then proceeded to grab lunch somewhere and happened into a Bar.  Now this town does not see Americans, and even though we're pretty versed in the way things work this guy in the Bar was not having any of it.  He was big, never smiled, but when he offered to make us paninis I smiled quite large.  I didn't see the slicer and bread but he did hook us up.  Two proscuitto paninis, two water, a bag of chips and an espresso, 8.50 Euro.  I like that kind of deal.  

Anyway, we proceeded into the park to find a spot to have lunch and hike a little.  The park is beautiful, and there is nobody around, just the way we'd hoped.  We did get delayed a little by a road block of sorts:

 

Yep, cattle free-ranging in the park, their bells were clanging like crazy.  We made it up to a nice spot, enjoyed our sandwiches and I grabbed the drone for a quick shot of the open landscape.  

Well that's when the "fun" began.  Sure enough, I flew the drone into a nice big tree, about 30 feet up.  So time to problem solve, we had some small rope we bought for a potential clothesline, so I tied a rock around one end and figured I could loop the branch and the drone would fall out.  You guessed it, I threw the whole damn rope into the tree!! 

 

So at this point we are about 20 minutes from town, which is closed for riposo, and kinda stuck.  There were some people at the building you see in the background but I wasn't in a good spot to talk to anybody, let alone try to ask them for help win this kind of situation. However Kathie, she is my steady, calm, rock took the best approach.  We found two long sticks, bungeed them together, added a hangar to the end, and I was just able to reach the rope.  Afterwards getting the drone down took about 3 tosses and down she came, no damage!  I make this sound a lot simpler than it was.  There was a bunch of cussing, some stick and rock throwing at the drone to try and loosen it, and just a little bit of laughing.....the whole process taking over an hour.

At that point we were confident that we should head on to Matera, counting our good fortune to keep the drone.  I was not confident I'd be leaving with it.

On our way out of the park we did see some really majestic scenery

 

We arrived in Matera and this place is really difficult to get around in, especially when Google Maps are about 2 years out of date.  One way roads now that weren't put us in the middle of the town piazza and double parked checking out our map.  We were approached by a guy in an official looking Matera Tourism shirt that offered to show us how to get to our B&B, rightly calling the city a labryinth.  He called his buddy to get the scooter to drive the 2km, then said it would be 10 Euro.  I laughed and told him no, at that point we had about 2500km on Grazea and I'd driven in Palermo among other tough places, this dude was not getting our money.  About 20 minutes later we arrived at B&B Sassolino, in the heart of the old town.  

 

When I say old it is an understatement.  Matera is a cave town, literally caves carved into the hillside, and it is the 2nd oldest continually inhabited city on earth.  People have lived here for 30,000 consecutive years!  That is amazing to me, just let that settle in, 30,000 years of settlement.

We had a great dinner of pizza and wine at Morgan's Pizzeria, just up the hilly road, it was tasty.  

More later from Matera and the day trips we have planned, including Alberbello, Ostuni, the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, and more.  

Ciao