Matera

So I'm going to go to Rome.

What people don't say is, hey, I really want to go to Matera in southern Italy and go stay in the caves down there because most people haven't heard of that place.

So how on earth are they supposed to know? How did I find out? I didn't find out from a blog or, well, I'm sure there's plenty of blogs that talk about Matera because it's a freaking incredible, actually, I'm pretty sure the Thrifty Traveler, I think Kyle from the Thrifty, yeah, was it Kyle? No, Gunner from the Thrifty Traveler actually went to Matera not even that long ago and he was raving about how amazing it was.

That might've been the most publicity that Mateta has gotten in years, honestly, because Thrifty Traveler is a pretty big audience.

Anyway, I found it because I was trying to find a good use of Hyatt points in Italy.

Ask 10 Americans what they're planning to see in Puglia, and the list will overlap by about 80%.

Alberobello for the Trulli, Ostuni for the whitewashed hill town, Lecce for its honey-coloured baroque, Polignano a Mare for the cliff views, and if there's room in the schedule, a detour over the regional border to Matera for the Sassi.

Now, it's a good list.

None of these places are overrated.

Close enough to add, with almost no extra driving, where the evening passeggiato is still mostly locals rather than visitors.

it might mean swapping a Trullo stay in Alberobello for the countryside around Locorotondo instead geographically almost interchangeable and architecturally just as rewarding and considerably calmer even in August Cisternino and Martina Franca do similar work recognisably part of the same Trullo and whitewashed landscape everyone came to see without the cues that Alberobello's UNESCO status has earned it From a Salento base, the equivalent move is treating Lecce and Otranto or Gallipoli as the anchor days, and then giving at least one day to somewhere the official numbers say Americans are barely visiting yet, Galatina, Nardo, or head all the way down south to Castro, Marina Serra, Santa Maria dell'Iuca.

Matera, of course, deserves its own mention here.

It's extraordinary and an easy detour from Bari or a central Puglia base.

to go and see those locations.

We went to Matera in Italy this year because, you know, James Bond.

My parents have been on holiday to places.

So this is a real thing.

And so I was ready for something where I felt like I had more agency and I was really doing something meaningful and fulfilling.

And I went to a workshop in Matera in Italy, which is an amazing, beautiful medieval stone city.

I think it's one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe.

And the Designing Your Life workshop from Stanford, which I had had on my bucket list forever, happened to go there.

That's where some of the most famous Aglianico wines are from, is Taurasi.

And also in the region of Basilicata, which is where the amazing city of Matera is-

Mm

... as well as the cool town we went to on the trip we went to last year, where your grandfather's mom was from, called...

It's really, the Ionian Sea over there is really beautiful.

And I do, one of my favorite places in the world is Matera.

I go there whenever we can.

I would not go there in the summertime in no way, shape, or form.

Like, you know, the evil eye or stories like this.

In, uh, the area where I live now, which is Matera, and also in Calabria, uh, but in the past, probably all over southern Italy, even giving too many compliments was, uh, some sort of a cursing.

Now, this is hard to explain for me, because I don't know, but still, if you say too many nice things to people, you see that they don't like it.

They're kind of scared of that.

Grazie.

Ciao.

Paolo is the best, isn't he? I just love the way he adds so much rich context to his home region of Puglia and also where he lives now in Matera, in the Basilicata region.

Hiring a local guide like Paolo is one of the best things you can do whenever you go, in my opinion.