The trip south to Martina Franca

Our plan

We planned a drive south from Florence that would include three stops before we would finally arrive at Martina Franca where we would stay for a week. The three stops are shown in red on the map. 

We drove from Florence to Castello di Semivicoli on a Wednesday afternoon and stayed at the Castello overnight. Thursday afternoon we drove 75 miles to San Martino in Pensilis, mostly over country roads. Friday afternoon we drove to Trani, and easier drive of 110 miles along Italian superhighways where the speed limit is 81 mph ... and people really drive that fast. The final leg of the trip on Saturday was an hour and a half drive to Martina Franca and an apartment on the edge of the old town.

Street in the old town

From our base in Martina Franca, a town of 50,000, we visited the small towns of Alberobello, Ostuni, and Matera by car. To visit Bari, we took a regional train and saw the countryside at a leisurely pace and arrived in the center of Bari without having to find a place to park.

Martina Franca was not a tourist destination so we thought that it might make a quiet place to stay while we took day trips to places in the area that were tourist destinations. We think that our plan worked well.

Martina Franca has an old town that is full of white buildings. The old town is generally well kept and there is a busy promenade between the religious center, the cathedral, and a lively civic center, Piazza XX Settembre. On the weekends and on the weekdays in the afternoon the street between these two locations were full of people walking and checking out all the shops and restaurants that are found along these streets. The other streets in the old town were very quiet.

Basilica of Saint Martin

The new town that surrounds the old town is not impressive. The new town consists of five and six story apartment buildings, tightly packed, with cars parked everywhere. We were fortunate; the apartment included gated parking but the apartment was situated on a busy ring road that hugged the edges of the old town.

The cathedral, dedicated to Saint Martin, was impressive with an odd shaped piazza in front. A second piazza connected to the cathedral piazza that made a pleasant, active public space. On our last evening in Martina Franca a movie was being shot in the piazza. We watched the production but it moved at a snail’s pace. It can’t be that glamorous a life to spend so much time waiting for the director to yell, “Action” of whatever they say in Italian. We gave up waiting.

The civic piazza

The civic piazza was a treat. Full of people, benches, and trees, it was a nice place for the Martinesi to stroll, shop, and talk with friends. The piazza was called XX Settembre, the 20th of September and we’d notice that lots of piazzas in Italy are named for various dates. We checked and this was the date in 1870 when Rome was finally added to a unified Italian state. At that point the capital of the new state was moved from Florence to Rome.

A baby girl lives in this house

The old town has it charms. The architecture is more Baroque, intricately complicated but often pointlessly so. This doorway was pleasant because it announced that a baby girl had been born to the family that lived within. This is a common thing to see in all of Italy where children are so highly prized.

Bari

Bari is the largest city in Puglia, a little over a 325,000 people. The approach to the city is typical of Italian cities, smokestacks and industry give way to five and six story apartment buildings, and finally a modern commercial center. Then, tucked in a small area very near the shore, is the old town. The medieval town. That was our destination.

We took the railroad from Martina Franca, where we were staying, to Bari. Martina Franca is a small town and secure parking was included with the apartment so driving in an out of Martina Franca was possible. But driving into Bari seemed like a really bad idea. Especially when the railroad ticket to Bari 45 miles to the northeast was only 5.60 Euro each way.

The train was leisurely, stopping frequently to pick up and drop off passengers. As we got closer to Bari there were more young people, presumably students, hopping on and off.

Roman road

Finally we arrived at the rail station which is set in a handsome piazza. We crossed the piazza and walked along an wide street reserved for pedestrians toward the shore and the old town.

The first interesting thing we noticed as we approached the old town was a section of walkway that was chained off. This section revealed a Roman road that lay below the modern streets and walkways. If you look closely, you can see the grooves that were worn in the store by the carts that drove over this road. The rest of the Roman road remains covered -- and protected in a way -- by the modern streets and walkways.

Sailboat

Fisherman

A sunny day with clear blue skies made the harbor even more pleasant to admire. There was a sailboat passing through an opening in the breakwall out to a calm sea. There was a fisherman returning with his catch.

Bari Film Festival

On the pier we could see a handsome 19th century building whose windows were oddly all closed up. On our way to the old town we eventually walked on the other side of the building and noted that the Bari Film Festival was ongoing. The windows were sealed off, evidently, for viewing movies.

Crypt of St. Nicolas

The old town was a warren of narrow streets but the little community was a real community with small grocery shops and housewares stores and little evidence of souvenir stands. We did get inside the Bari cathedral and took a photo in the crypt which houses relics of St. Nicolas. We were more interested in the light cast by the fixtures.

Stone walls everywhere

On our way back to Martina Franca we were struck by the many, many stone fences. Puglia is an agricultural area but the soils appear to have lots of rocks mixed in. We remember that the New England farmers, in an effort to improve their soil, took the glacially deposited rocks from their fields and made store fences. We had to wonder if the Pugliesi farmers had done something similar.

Ostuni

Ostuni is a small town of 30,000 about 15 miles east of Martina Franca. Everything in the town is white and it feels like a seaside town though it’s a few miles from the Adriatic Sea.

Ostuni cathedral

The old town is located high above the modern town below. You enter the winding streets and climb to the cathedral at the top. From here the view to the sea was wonderful. You could almost smell the salt air.

Adriatic Sea in the distance from the top of the old town

Clearly, it's a whitewash

On our way down we got a sense for how things stayed so white. A bucket, a drop cloth, and a roller on an extension handle and you could make your own white city.

We visit the sassi in Matera

From our apartment in Martina Franca it is a short drive to Matera, a city in the eastern part of Basilicata, the region of Italy that borders Puglia. As you enter Matera you see a modern town with familiar street names such as Via Nazionale and Via Dante Alighieri but the reason why people come to this remote town is to see the sassi, the caves that people here have lived in since prehistoric times.

Caves in the limestone cliffs opposite Matera

A river flows along the edge of Matera called the Torrente Gravina. A “torrente” is a body of water that rushes during the rain season, the winter, and dries up during the hot, dry season, the summer. Though the stream flows only part of the year, it’s had millennia to dig a deep canyon in the limestone that the city rests on.

On the side of the canyon opposite the city you can see the effect of the action of slightly acidic water on the limestone over the years. The raw, ragged slope is dotted with many, many caves. The closer you look across the canyon, the more caves you see. The canyon is protected as a national park.

On the city side of the canyon the stream has carved a bowl into the limestone, a deep bowl with the same large number of caves formed by the action of water and carbon dioxide. This has happened in other parts of the world, too. See eight Corvettes that fell into a sinkhole that suddenly opened up in limestone of Florida:  Sinkhole Swallows 8 Cars At National Corvette Museum.

Panorama of the sassi

Structures added to cave entrances

People have always lived in these caves. As the years passed, the caves were “improved” by adding entrances and the entrances have become more elaborate. But the homes were quite small. The only benefit of the cave-homes was as an escape from the brutal heat of the summer.

Lunch break

We started on the opposite side of the sassi and descended to the bottom and walked up to the Matera cathedral with is just above the sassi. The air was cool but the sun was brilliant and the climb back up was tiring. (There is so much walking to do in Italy!) We found the three-sided steps of the cathedral and noted that only one side of the steps was in the shade. We sat down there to enjoy the shade and to catch our breath. After a few moments a group of Italian middle school students came around the corner led by their teachers and chaperones. The kids were told that is was time for their lunch break. The kids made the same choice that we had made; the sunny portion of the steps remained empty and the kids surrounded us. They were nice kids; they offered to share their cookies and potato chips with us. Their teacher laughed when we told her we retired teachers and volunteered to take our photo. It had been a while since we'd shared lunch with young students.

The sassi have had an interesting recent history. In the 1930s in his book Christ Stopped at Eboli, Carlo Levi described the sassi and the primitive conditions of the people who lived there. In the 1950s the Italian leftist parties described the sassi as the “shame of Italy” and demanded action. Government officials visited the city and action followed. New housing was built and the sassi were evacuated. (See the bottom of this page: Reconstructing Italy: The Ina-Casa Neighborhoods of the Postwar Era - Dr Stephanie Zeier Pilat - Google Books. Scroll to the top of the next page for a description of what followed Levi’s damning description of life in Matera.)

After we were revived by resting in the shade and laughing with the middle school kids, we continued back down the sassi to an address called Vico Solitario (a vico is an alleyway though this alley is quite open and on the side of hill.) Here there is a museum, of sorts, that shows what a sassi home looked like when people were living in them. A family of 11 people lived in this sasso until the mid-1950s. 

Main room

The museum opens to a small room dominated by a bed which is raised high off the ground in an attempt to get away from the high humidity on the cave floor. Chickens were kept under the bed. The electric light was for the convenience of visitors; there was no electricity in the sassi. The youngest child slept in a crib at the base of the bed. Small children slept in drawers that were pulled out.

Kitchen

There was a small kitchen off the main room. The kitchen appeared to have been carved out of the rock. Perhaps this was an “improvement” made by some earlier inhabitant of this sasso.

Storage = large animals, straw, and manure

In the back was space for larger animals, straw, and manure. All of these were valuable to the inhabitants of the sassi.

The sassi became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993. Since then tourists have come to Matera in large numbers and the sassi have been developed into homes, restaurants, and hotels. This gentrification is jarring considering the history of the place.

The trip south to Puglia - Trani

Finally we're in Puglia.

Trani cathedral

Trani is a small city on the Adriatic and the first of many “white” cities that we’ll seem in Puglia. We stayed in an apartment in the center of town, an apartment that was close to the places that we wanted to see.

We walked from our apartment to the Trani cathedral, a majestic, tall building built within a few feet of the Adriatic Sea. The cathedral is the third church built on this same site. Inside the cathedral one can see pavements from the earlier churches that were buried under the current structure.

A "monster" fish

To get to the cathedral we walked past a fish market. The fish was being sold within a few steps from the boats that had caught the fish. The bargaining was constant and lots of fish were sold. This fisherman saw me taking a photo and held up a fish that he called a “mostro”, a monster. Then he smiled.

Whose boat is this?

One of the pleasure boats in the harbor has a familiar name.

Follow the black

The old town was a warren of a narrow streets and even with a map, it was easy to get lost. Of course, how do you drive in such a place. The town fathers of Trani may found an interesting solution. The twisting back alleys that led nowhere were paved with white stone and the twisting main thoroughfares, such as they were, were paved with black stone suggesting that such a street actually led somewhere. Interesting system.

The trip south to Puglia - San Martino in Pensilis

After a short stay in Semivicoli we drove south, first to San Martino in Pensilis in the region of Molise and then onto Trani in the region of Puglia. Each of these drives was brief, about an hour and a half.

Leo, the hotel manager

On one side of our family the grandparents emigrated from San Martino in P (as it is always abbreviated here.) We’ve visited the town briefly before and we’ve found friendly people, some specific information, but no relatives still living here.

The last time we were here, Leo, the hotel manager, knew that we must have been looking for information on relatives. He recognized the last name as being part of the history of the town. He asked his mother, who was in her 90s, for what she knew and shared that with us. Leo remembered us and welcomed us back.

The people in San Martino in P are proud of their town and its traditions. This is entirely normal, it seems, in Italy; the strongest possible attachment, after the attachment to the family, is to the town or city. But because the town is not prosperous, it is obvious that many young people have left and the population of the town is largely older people who’ve stayed and older people who’ve returned.

Dramatic scene; they must be friends

There is drama on the sidewalks of Sal Martino in P just as there is everywhere else in Italy.

Three local guys

As we about to step into a coffee bar, we met three men. One man spoke English well and asked us to wait on the sidewalk while he went to his car. His two friends stayed with us and the third man returned with a little booklet describing the towns annual Carresse, the 5 mile race of carts pulled by teams of oxen. Constantino, the man who had fetched the booklet, insisted on us keeping it. We were touched.

Constantino had spent years working as a hotel manager in St. Louis. His English was very good but his friends only listened. Perhaps he was showing off, perhaps he enjoyed speaking English to Americans. There aren’t many Americans who ever visit this town.

Leo walks with us down Via Puglia

We stepped into the bar, were recognized by the barrista from our trip years ago, and had our coffee. We were surprised when Leo, a man we had met years before, came into the bar. We told him that we had secured a grandmother’s birth records and that she had lived at 62 Via Puglia, the very street on which the bar was located. Leo said that he’s take us to the address.

The last house on Via Puglia was number 52

We walked down the street but the last house on the street was 52 Via Puglia. Beyond that was a park and perhaps the construction of the park years ago had involved taking down some buildings on Via Puglia.

We appreciated that we had been remembered by the hotel manager, the barrista, and another guy named Leo who happened to be walking by on the street. San Martino in P is rich, indeed, in its warmth and generosity.

Castello di Semivicoli and Masciarelli wines

Castello di Semivicoli

We left Florence on Wednesday mid-day last week and drive south in our rented Volvo 40. It’s less sporty than an Alfa-Romeo Giulietta but it’s perhaps more practical for our purposes as we carry four suitcases from place to place. The Volvo has a turbo diesel so it has good pick up and it’s pleasant to drive at Italian superhighway speeds. (The speed limit on the superhighways is 81 mph. This limit does not seem to appear to apply to Mercedes, Audis, BMWs, or red Italian sports cars.)

Our plan was to end our drive south in Puglia and stay in an apartment in Martina Franca for a week. Instead of driving there directly, however, we wanted to break the trip up into some pleasant side trips to some in between places. Our first side trip was to Castello di Semivicoli about 4.5 hours south of Florence. The Castello is owned by the Masciarelli family and is operated as a small resort.

Masciarelli Montepulciano d'Abruzzo

Masciarelli wines

At home we enjoy Masciarelli wines, two in particular, Masciarelli Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (a red, DOC, 100% montepulciano d’abruzzo; typically $8) and Masciarelli Trebbiano d’Abruzzo (a white, DOC, 100% trebbiano d’abruzzo; typically $9). These wines are reliably good and not expensive. The company has a reputation for making good wines.

We had understood that Masciarelli produces a number of wines that are available in larger cities in the US. We were curious to try some of these other wines in order to see if Masciarelli’s good reputation applies to these wines, too.

Castello di Semivicoli is a castle in Abruzzo that was purchased by the Masciarelli family in the 1980s and which has been extensively redone into a place to welcome visitors and host festivities. We stayed at the castle one night and during the first evening a wedding and reception were held on the property.

La Brocca

The Semivicoli property is in a rural area and does not include a restaurant. After we arrived we asked for a recommendation for a nearby trattoria. Reservations were made for us a La Brocca, a small brick and store farmhouse that has been made into a small handsome restaurant. We asked the host for a light meal and she offered us a mixture of wild greens, boiled and cooked in garlic and oil, and served with chunks of corn bread (though not the sweetened version of corn bread that we have). The greens were bracing and the corn bread chunks gave the dish substance. 

The wild greens were preceded by some locally produced sliced meats and cheeses and accompanied with the host's homemade red wine. This kind of cooking is called cucina povera or peasant cooking. This kind of cooking uses the freshest ingredients that are cooked in a straightforward way. In Manhattan cucina povera, despite the humble name, is incredibly expensive.

We’d recommend La Brocca but you’d need to put coordinates into your GPS or your smart phone to find the place. Here are the coordinates: N 42° 13.537' E 014° 13.099'. The phone is +39 0871 809100. Here is the restaurant web site: La Brocca home. Here is the recipe for pizze e foje, the dish of wild greens and corn bread that we had:  recipe for pizze e foje.

The wine tasting

Near the end of the wine tasting

The next day we sat down at mid-day for a wine tasting at Castello di Semivicoli. There were the two of us and Valentina, the hotel manager and a marketer of Masciarelli wines. We were served a number of hot and cold dishes to sample from and seven wines were opened and offered to us for tasting. We talked about food and wine for about an hour and a half. Then she left us to return to her work and we stayed to consider the food and the wine further. We enjoyed to food with gusto and tasted the wine with responsibility. After the wine we had coffee and enjoyed the view of the mountains.

We asked to sample only wines that we can purchase in the United States. Here are the wines that we tasted over the course of several hours. All the wines were very good. We especially liked the first, second, fifth, and seventh wines.

1. Villa Gemma Bianco Colline Teatine, 2015 IGT, white wine. Floral in the nose, nice acid. One of our favorites wines in the tasting. Wine-Searcher shows this wine at about $14 a bottle. This is a blend of 80% trebbiano d’Abruzzo, 15% cococciola, and 5% chardonnay.

2. Villa Gemma Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, 2015 DOC, rosé wine. This is a pleasant wine with a nice little bite that would go well with food. Wine-Searcher shows this wine at about $13 a bottle. 100% montepulciano d’abruzzo.

3. Marina Cvetic Trebbiano Riserva, 2013 IGT, white wine. A more sophisticated white wine that can be aged. The wine spends 22 months in small oak barrels. Wine-Searcher shows a bottle from 2010 vintage for $12 each. 100% trebbiano d’abruzzo.

4. Marina Cvetic Chardonnay, 2013 IGT, white wine. Another sophisticated white but not in an highly oaked style. The wine spends 23 months in small oak barrels. Wine-Searcher shows bottles from 2011 vintage for $50 each. 100% chardonnay.

5. Marina Cvetic Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva, 2011 DOC, red wine. A fine dinner wine, not too complicated and matches well with food. This wine and the chardonnay above actually matched will with the artichoke pasta we were served. This wine spends 12 to 18 months in small oak barrels. Wine-Searcher shows this wine at about $20 a bottle. 100% montepulciano d’abruzzo.

6. Marina Cvetic Iskra Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Colline Teramane, 2009 DOCG, red wine. A hearty wine that matches well with chocolate. Sophisticated. This wine spends 12 to 18 months in small oak barrels. Wine-Searcher did not return any prices for this wine; is this available in the US? 100% montepulciano d’abruzzo.

7. Villa Gemma Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, 2007 DOC, red wine. This was a stunningly good wine, as good as any wine we’ve ever had and calls for the best cut of beef that you can imagine. This wine spends 18 to 24 months in small oak barrels and is aged further in the bottle. Wine-Searcher shows a bottle from 2008 vintage for $80 each. 100% montepulciano d’abruzzo.

Mont Amaro from Castello di Semivicoli

Marina Cvetic has her name associated with many of these wines. She was the wife of Gianni Masciarelli until he died suddenly and unexpectedly at 50 in 2008. Her name had appeared on these wines before his death and she has taken over the operation of the business. For more on Martina Cvetic, see Celebrating 10 Talented Women in Wine: Marina Cvetic From Italy's Masciarelli Winery.

The hospitality shown by the Castello di Semivicoli staff to us was outstanding. They have a small hotel with places for a small number of guests. The grounds of the hotel are well kept and the surrounding area is beautiful. And, finally, the wines are a great value. For more on Castello di Semivicoli, see Castello di Semivicoli: A Hideaway in the Highlands of Italy’s Abruzzo.