We’re back in Matera. Last time we were there, we wanted to hike the other side of the ravine, but the rain lasted longer than hoped, and we had to change plans. Since Barri is less than an hour’s drive from Matera, we decided to try our luck again.
The Parco Regionale della Murgia Materana is huge, but documentation is lacking (there’s not a single map on their website). To ensure our survival, we’ve elected to keep to the well-travelled trails near the city. Their website describes the trails and numbers them, but once on site, we find they are not advertised and are devoid of blazes and signage. AllTrail is proving to be a better companion app, offering trail maps and a wealth of interesting hikes. We ended up wandering about following the AllTrail map.
The views of the city and the gorge are gorgeous (see what I did there). We walked all the way down and back up, stopping at several caves, some with clear signs of being sculpted for habitation (if not permanently, at least for tending to herds). The six-kilometre hike made our day.
Returning to the apartment, we packed and moved to a hotel room we reserved. We had a hard time with the apartment, whose only redeeming quality was the bathroom. That’s the downside of Airbnb: some people will push the truth of what they are offering quite far, and that’s what happened to us. The hotel we moved into, though four times more expensive (especially since we booked at the last minute), did offer a balcony with a beautiful sea view. We popped open our last bottle of wine, some olives, and taralli (small loops of crunchy dough you’ll find everywhere in southern Italy), and called it an aperitivo.
Dinner at Ristorante Biancofiore turned out to be more of an adventure than we bargained for. The atrocious handwriting of our waiter created confusion in the kitchen. Our raw fish starter, composed of tuna tartare, sashimi, and shrimp, arrived as a half portion instead of the whole portion we intended to share. The seafood risotto for two was served with nuts on top (the kitchen either couldn't read the squiggles on the ticket or our server didn’t write it down; nobody knows). It did get me a last-minute substitution for agnolotti filled with mozzarella di Bufala topped with tomato sauce and shrimp, quick and straightforward to make (its main attraction for our distraught waiter seeing Karine eating and me watching her eat. All was delicious, and the waiter apologized profusely for the issues. We concluded with two fish plates for our secondi, which we did get as ordered. In the end, other than the 66% error rate on our orders, the food itself made it all worthwhile.