Lecce and Matera

Funziona! (it works! in italian)  So deleting a bunch of the old pictures ended up working and I just saved them in a work document just for fun.  But here our next stops in our trip across southern italy.

We stayed overnight twice in Lecce.  At first it seemed like a pretty boring town.  We arrived there late the first night, I had a really good pizza with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella.  It started raining so we just walked back to the hotel but it didnt seem like there was much to see.  The next day we started wandering around the historic center with our guide and there was some pretty cool stuff.  But we were still confused because just like at dinner, the area seemed completely deserted.  Barely anyone was wandering the streets or walking around and compared to the rest of the italian cities, this was very odd.  But other than that it was cool to see.

The second night we stayed in Lecce, I decided to explore and see where the heck the whole town was.  So I walked around the historic center (which we had assumed was the majority of the city) and Bam there was a hugeeee city on the other side.  Tall modern buildings, really long streets filled with shops and lights and people and everything.  Found all the people.  The streets were packed and the night life was in full blast.  Its crazy what you can find when exploring.

another super decorative church

Kateri's birthday was in a few days and we saw a really delicious looking triple mousse chocolate cake so we split it.  It was awesome.  Plus the people at the restaurant were really friendly and some old lady that lived above it stopped by and talked to us for a while.  She was pretty adorable and mildly crazy.  Very entertaining.

Happy Early Bday Kateri!

Our next stop was Matera.  This city was awesome.  It was literally on the side of a mountain/cliff and on the edge of this beautiful valley/gorge with a river running through it.  We started out by taking a guided tour through the houses that were built into the rock cliffs.  This was really cool and they went pretty deep into the rock.  Right across on the other side of the river you could see huge caves and really cool cliffs.

one of the coolest views

After we went through the entire side with the city on it, we convinced our bus driver to take a substantial detour to the other side where the cliffs are.  It just happened to be the same time that the sun was setting too.  So we got to climb, explore, and hike all over this mountainside while the sun set over an incredible town built into the rock face.  So incredible and really cool to see from both sides of the valley.  I took a seat on some rocks on the cliff and enjoyed the amazing scenery and watched the sunset for a good hour.  One of the best parts of the whole trip for sure.  Good time to relax, reflect and enjoy.

some pretty dramatic hiking

mmm sunset