Trulli Sassi

26th October 2009

Sorry I just couldn't resist the title!

We have spent the last week touring a series of very diverse towns across
western Italy. We have visited medieval peasant homes, grand renaissance
villas, roman towns and today a etruscan necropolis dating back to 700BC.
Pictures on the next post.

When I last wrote we were in the olive grove in Alberobello, a unique town
full of small cylindrical white washed buildings with conical stone rooves,
known as "Trulli". In all there are some 1500 of these buildings in the
town, looking across the roof tops it was almost middle eastern. The houses
were originally built without mortar by the local peasants so they could
easily be pulled down if the tax inspectors came round!

From here we moved on to Matera, an absolutely amazing if somewhat sombre
old town full of "Sassi", which literally means stones, and in reality are
dwellings carved into the rock face. Many of them consisted of only one
room in which a large family, their livestock and chickens would live with
pretty much non existent sanitation (Picture ; me in a typical sassi).
People inhabited these caves until the 50s and 60s when the government
forcibly evicted twenty thousand to new tower blocks the other side of
town. Today a vast proportion are abandoned and you get a real feeling for
how bad conditions were here, one author visiting in 1945 likened the Sassi
area to Dante's Inferno, and although today it is an interesting and in
some ways beautiful place I can see why. The Sassi cover a vast area and we
spent a long time exploring the winding streets. The central area near the
new town where historically the dwellings were grander is being slowly
developed and although there are many crumbling buildings also alot of
boutique hotels!
We then moved on to Saepinum. On the way we drove for a good 100 miles
across rolling farmland without coming across a single town, just a few
groupings of deserted houses, presumably that housed farm workers back in
the day, and where now the crops being grown require much less labour.
Saepinum itself was brilliant. It is a small ruined roman town that has not
been built on by subsequent settlements and consequently the entire town
plan is visible, with well preserved roads, a forum, ruins of a temple,
baths, shops & houses. It was absolutely fascinating and really brought to
life how a roman town would have been, so much better than the places we
visted at school!. We continued the Roman theme in Cassino, better known
for a ferocious battle in the second world war, but which also has a large
roman site with amphitheatre, tombs and a theatre.

The highlight of the week however has to be the Villa d'Este in Tivoli
(near Rome) . It's world famous and seemed really familiar from all those
gardening programs but still beautiful. The fountains were just great!

Todays necropolis was a great if somewhat sombre way to round of a really
interesting week. The tombs were carved into the rock and arrayed along a
"street". Each tomb was huge and set out almost like a house with a series
of rooms, and would have been filled with valuable possessions and
household effects. Today they are fiilled with stagnant water and bees,
maybe the ancient etruscans way of keeping us out and guarding what is left
of their sacred site? I have to admit that it was all abit Indiana Jones,
with steps disapearing down into the darkened tombs!