After our final day of biking in Normandy, we headed to Paris for a day. Fourth time for some of us, first time for others.
Notre Dame, still under renovation:
Statue of Charlemagne et ses Leudes (“Charlemagne and His Paladins”) next to Notre Dame, which depicts Charlemagne; Roland (of the Song of Roland); and Olivier, Roland’s companion. The only problem is that Roland died 22 years before Charlemagne was coronated in 800. . .
IM Pei’s entrance to the Louvre (we did not enter on this trip):
The Tour de France-famous statue of Jean d’Arc, which riders pass every time they emerge from the tunnel on the last stage of the race.
Escargot, but of course:
Champs Elysees (also Tour related, natch):
Last night in France. . .
We stumbled upon the Lady Diana memorial on the way home – she crashed in the tunnel below.
And apparently wandered by the next morning on the way to grab some breakfast, as well. . .
On to the last leg of our Prolonged Foray to Europe! And the one that was not planned at all before we left. . .
Our final day of biking in Normandy entailed riding from Avranches to the final major sight on the itinerary: the quasi-island abbey of Mont Saint Michel.
Route for the day, from Avranches to Mont Saint Michel (we forgot we had all of these and are adding them to previous Normandy biking posts):
Just a short distance out of town we came upon an air show at the Aerodrome d’Avranches:
Where Thomas immediately took advantage of the beer tent:
Onward!
Our destination for the day, looking every bit like a sand castle in the distance:
The heretofore unknown-to-us German War Cemetery in Normandy:
It’s an unassuming columbarium containing the remains of 12,000 war dead from western France and the Channel Islands.
With another view of Mont Saint Michel from the top:
The little hamlet of La Rive, with a trailhead to the monastery:
On the causeway, site of an individual time trial in the 2013 Tour de France:
The place is like a wedding cake.
Once inside the walled abbey and its little encircling town, we made a beeline to the top of the complex.
Mont Saint-Michel’s history began in 708 AD, when, according to tradition, the Archangel Michael appeared to Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, and instructed him to build a sanctuary on the rocky tidal island.
Benedictine monks established an abbey there in 966, transforming it into a major medieval pilgrimage destination.
An extraordinary Gothic complex, known as La Merveille (“The Marvel”) was built on the abbey’s north side in the early 13th century.
During the Hundred Years’ War, its formidable fortifications helped it withstand English attacks, making it a powerful symbol of French resistance.
Cool capitals on the church columns:
“A marvel within the “Merveille,” the cloister offers a timeless experience, between sky and sea. The Merveille is a group of Gothic buildings, built on the north side of the rock, composed of three levels, a magnificent testimony to the know-how of the 13th century builders.” (From here.)
After the French Revolution, the abbey was converted into a prison, which operated until 1863, before restoration efforts revived its religious and historic significance.
Elevator / crane:
Our abbey tour concluded, we headed back through the throngs and out to our bikes.
And rode to our hotel, right at the edge of the causeway.
The hotel’s location was phenomenal.
Even if the hotel itself was for shite.
Watching the sunset from our terraces – pretty awesome.
After 2 nights in Bayeux and a loop ride to the coast and the British and Canadian Normandy beaches on Day 1 of biking, Day 2 took us back to the coast to the American beaches, and then inland.
Some historic estate or other a few miles outside of town:
Passing by the Église Saint-Romain de Étréham, the Church of Saint-Roman.
Originally built in the 11th century, but renovated over time, it still retains its Romanesque west facade.
And 12th-century tower.
Highlight of the day’s ride, at Omaha Beach:
Cool map of the Normandy landings at the cemetery:
Yesterday, we were there:
Today, we are here:
Sobering but serene.
Cool mosaic capturing the cycle of Americans traveling to and fighting in Normandy on the ceiling of the cemetery’s chapel:
Massive mural of the landings and subsequent beachheads:
And a short distance away. . .
the entire European theater (from the non-Soviet POV, anyway):
Both with handy legends.
Onward (and more tanks!).
The Abbey of Saint Vigor, founded in 1032 by Duke of Normandy, Robert the Magnificent (father of William the Bastard, who went on to become William the Conqueror). (Robert the Vigorous would have been much funnier and more apropos.)
In the 12th century, the abbey extended its powers over nearby, former Merovingian abbeys, and also founded several priories, becoming more influential and wealthy in the process.
“In 1337, the dynastic rivalries between the Valois and the kings of England precipitated the country into the Hundred Years War, which plunged the country into misery, aggravated by epidemics of plague. The abbey was fortified and a garrison settled there. In 1418, Richard de Silly, knight and captain of the abbey, was obliged to cede the abbey to the King of England. However, after the victory of the constable de Richemont over the English at Formigny in 1450, Normandy returned definitively to the kingdom of France.” (From here.)
The monks left the abbey during the French Revolution, and the abbey became the unique parish church of the village of Cerisy-la-Forêt in 1790.
The abbey was built on the ruins of an older monastery destroyed by the Normans during their invasion.
Of the French. When the Normans were still Vikings and did not yet benefit from Rollo’s permanent settlement here. . .
Final (and very long) stretch of the day’s ride.
But with a pretty cool conclusion: Chateau de Canisy, our lodging for the evening.
About which we have much to discuss – both the very cool (its history) and the very bizarre (our actual stay).
First, some history. Chateau de Canisy dates to the freakin’ 11th century. Definitely the oldest and most historic place we’ve stayed (just off the top of our head – we did stay in a Welsh castle 2 years earlier, but we think that was built maybe 100 years later (by Normans, as it happens)).
AND there’s a connection to Billy the Conq and the first of the two invasions referenced during our Day 1 post of the trip. In 1066, Hughe de Carbonnel participated in the conquest of England alongside William the Conqueror. At that time, Hugues de Carbonnel already was Lord of Canisy. Of the medieval chateau, one fortified tower and part of the living quarters remain. The family also remains – the current occupants, the Count and Countess Denis de Kergorlay, are direct descendants of Hugues de Carbonnel. The Countess, we would learn, is quite a piece of work.
Most of the Chateau de Canisy’s present architecture dates from the time of Henry IV, when Herve de Carbonnel (1558 – 1625) undertook the construction of a castle to mark his illustrious alliance with Anne de Matignon, daughter of the Count of Thorigny, Marshal of France. In 1588, he commissioned much of the rest of the chateau to be built by architect François Gabriel, (the ancestor of Ange-Jacques Gabriel, one of the architects of the Château de Versailles). A monumental granite staircase was designed by Gabriel, as well as “the addition to the magnificent Cotentin stone of the pudding stone, a purple stone with amethyst reflections, for creating bosses and door and window frames.”
And who wouldn’t want to adorn their chateau with pudding stones?!
In the 20th century, Chateau de Canisy remained a stronghold of the Kergorlay family. From generation to generation, the family has lived in the chateau and has preserved and restored it. Damaged by the fighting during the allied landings in 1944, the chateau was restored with the help of the Historical Monument administration and classified as “Monument Historique” in 1945. Therein ends the cool, historical aspect of our visit.
On to our stay itself. We were the only guests there. The good news? Both couples got massive, luxurious, royal accommodations with tons of character. That was pretty much the only good news. The first bad news was that only a receptionist, manager, and cook were in residence. No bar, no bartender, and no one spoke English. Using Google Translate, we ended up ordering the beers we so desperately needed after the long last leg of the ride. When we stay we ordered the beers, we ordered all of their beers. They had maybe 3/4 of a case? Maybe? We had them bring all of them out, where they were rapidly consumed.
Then the receptionist left, and we were served dinner (in the music room located in a turret, which was cool, although we have notes on the meal itself). After this, the manager announced the second bad news: they were leaving and that we should lock the front door when we went to bed.
We’ll be alone here by ourselves, we asked?
Oui.
So, because nightfall came so late in Normandy in July, our first act of our now-independent stay was to take a walk all around the grounds, which were very nice.
“Is that a pudding stone?”
The chateau’s 16th-century ice house (minus roof and “entrance airlock”), discovered in the 1850s.
Then, we reentered the chateau to explore there. On our own. Alone and unsupervised.
We explored every inch of this place, from the barrel-vaulted basement (no dungeon or torture chamber was evident, but there could always have been a secret door that we missed. . .), to the 1980s era bar (!) and disco, to the unused hallway of standard hotel rooms on the second floor, to the attic space above.
And also the inside of this original tower from the 11th century.
After all of the exploring, and because we had consumed the entire chateau’s supply of booze, we decided to turn in.
As we locked the front door per the creepy – and now absent – manager’s instructions, and resigned ourselves to spending the night in a deserted, 11th-century chateau, we truly and sincerely turned to each other and somberly pronounced “see you tomorrow to whoever makes it through the night here alive.”
Seriously. It was like retiring for the night knowing that you’re in an unsettling horror film where something bad is going to happen. But you don’t know what; or to whom.
But with fewer cobwebs.
The intrepid group of ghost hunters who dared to spend the night alone in a medieval chateau.
There’s a postscript to this adventure: WolfeStreetTravel posted a review a few months later on TripAdvisor, on which we’ve posted many of our stays to that point (we submitted 290 reviews). The review reflected the narrative above, complementing the chateau’s history and architecture but also expressing bewilderment and unease over being left alone there overnight. The countess decided to respond to the review by denying all of this and stating that staff were there during our entire stay. Which, all four of us will contend, was patently untrue.
TripAdvisor apparently lets the hotel – not the guest reviewing the hotel – have the last word, and so we were not provided the opportunity to rebut the blatant fiction peddled by the countess. We were annoyed, but that was that.
Then, when, 3 years later, WolfeStreetTravel FINALLY gets around to posting this experience to our blog, we went to copy the review to simply paste it here only to find that TRIPADVISOR HAS REMOVED OUR REVIEW ENTIRELY.
We’re going to try to confront TripAdvisor about this, but it’ll take some effort to navigate through the turrets and walls they (and every other corporate entity on the web) have erected to delay, deny, or distract an actual person from contacting them. But we’re pretty annoyed, so we’ll give it a shot. If this effort bears fruit, we’ll post a follow up here.
After mulling over an extended trip to Japan over Christmas during our New England and Canada road trip this past summer, we quickly concluded that the time and focus needed to plan the logistics of that trip would be misspent while actively engaged in another. And so we defaulted to an easier-to-plan, one-stop trip to a location closer by that’s been on our list for a few years: San Miguel de Allende in the center of Mexico.
The town had been on our radar for a few reasons:
Most notably, the town hosted the finale of Top Chef one season, and the gastronomic reputation of San Miguel appeals to us
The Boston Connells spent more than a month in San Miguel back in the day as part of the boys’ Spanish immersion education (which certainly paid off, considering that one of them ended up taking two semesters of college engineering courses in Spain – in Spanish – and the other spent a month in Ecuador last year)
There’s a Rosewood there
The choice turned out to be a wise one – really beautiful place, both from a distance during cocktail hour:
And up close and personal in town:
We took a walking tour our first morning there, and our guide stated that San Miguel now consists of 14% gringos, and that, although Americans began visiting the town in meaningful numbers after WW II due to a Spanish language school that was covered by the GI Bill, the big surge came much later. Due, according to our guide, to a proclamation a dozen years ago by Conde Nast Travel that San Miguel was the most beautiful town in the world.
Moneyed Americans (and Canadians) soon followed – first as visitors, then as residents.
UNESCO also designated the center of town as a World Heritage Site, which is a pretty meaningful statement about the place. As a result of these moneyed new residents and the UNESCO designation, San Miguel has been beautifully preserved. Or gentrified. It’s a fine line.
And in all of the town declared by Conde Nast to be the most beautiful in the world, the magazine declared this street to be the most beautiful in town (and in the world). While the specific rank is questionable to us, considering some of the places that we’ve visited, it was undeniably beautiful, and made more so by the Christmas decorations here and all around the center of town:
And cool street views weren’t limited to just that most famous lane:
Cool dia de los muertos mural by a local artist in a San Miguel bar:
And the dia de los muertos accessories didn’t stop there.
The rather picturesque Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Salud/Temple of Our Lady of Health:
First lunch in town at a fish taco place – pretty good!
San Miguel’s bull ring, which still hosts bull fighting events (none of which were held during our visit, though):
Great view from the rooftop bar at our place, with San Miguel’s landmark Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel (Parish Church of St. Michael, Archangel) as a centerpiece of the vista:
Although the town is actually named after a 16th-century friar, Juan de San Miguel (and Ignacio Allende, who we’ll get to), the San Miguel reference we most commonly encountered during our visit was the town’s patron saint and parish church personality – St. Michael the Archangel.
Pretty good view of the parish church from our room’s terrace, too!
Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel was, in fact, omnipresent during our visit. One simply could not escape its intrusion. Which was a good thing, from a town aesthetics point of view. . .
Both up close:
And from afar:
And during the day:
And at night:
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Christmas Eve:
Christmas Eve dinner at Aperi:
And the tradition of the traveling Christmas stockings continues!
Christmas day in the Rosewood’s courtyard (not sure this functions in email version of post):
Christmas Day lunch at Bovine, featuring outstanding suckling pork.
Christmas dinner at Rosewood’s gastronomic restaurant 1826 absolutely sucked balls, and so does not merit any photographic documentation.
Instead, let’s turn to a field trip we took to the birthplace of the Mexican revolution: Guanajuato, about a 1.5-hour drive from San Miguel.
Unlike San Miguel, which permits residents to paint house in whatever color they wish – as long as it’s some shade of ocher or red – Guanajuato really does allow any color paint. As evidenced in the kaleidoscope of house colors seen from the belle view over town:
So, here’s Guanajuato’s role in the overthrow of Mexico of Spanish rule. During the Spanish colonial period, the region around and including Guanajuato was home to incredibly productive silver mines, yielding great wealth. But only to some – namely, the Spanish-born aristocracy. A stark wealth gap developed between these aristocrats and the indigenous and mestizo inhabitants working the mines and haciendas, and the areas slaves. Moreover, the native-born Spanish also were denied wealth and agency, and so, in the late 18th century, multiple rebellions broke out. All of them brutally suppressed and unsuccessful.
In 1809, however, a group led by Ignacio Allende, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, Juan Aldama, Miguel Domínguez planned an armed revolt against the colonial government. (The last part of San Miguel de Allende takes its moniker from the first guy, bringing closure to our San Miguel discussion earlier in the post).
In September 1810, the rebel forces arrived in Guanajuato and besieged Spanish loyalist forces holed up in the city’s heavily fortified grain exchange, below:
The rebels besieged the grain exchange, but there were only four doors and rifles on the roof. So this dude, Juan José Martínez – a silver miner – strapped a slap of stone on his back and charged one of the doors, setting it alight and gaining entry. All of the loyalists were killed.
But the Spanish forces caught up with the leaders. “The four main participants – Hidalgo, Ignacio Allende, Juan Aldama, and José Mariano Jiménez – were shot by Spanish firing squads, and their bodies decapitated. The four heads were hung from the corners of the Grain Exchange, to discourage other independence movements. The heads remained hanging for ten years, until Mexico achieved its independence. They were then taken to Mexico City and eventually put to rest under el Ángel de la Independencia in 1910.” (From here.)
On to more contemporary activities; namely, our second funicular of the year!
Pretty cool town.
Guanajuato Basilica, now that we’re down in the city:
The town’s opera house, Teatro Juárez:
And the Jesuit University of Guanajuato, which looks way more like a church, frankly.
Albeit with visually appealing green limestone facade elements – this limestone is unique to Guanajuato.
The tourist-trap Alley of the Kiss; with two balconies close enough to do so, the location spawned a local Romeo and Juliette-style legend.
Pretty cool main cultural area, with topiary-style park trees, a la San Miguel.
Juan José Martínez from down below:
And one more stop before our return – a bunch of mummies. There’s a story regarding the high cost of burial, a poor population, abandoned corpses, and naturally dry climate that accounts for all of this, but that’s for a later post. For now, just be a little grossed out. (As much, or perhaps more so, than by their counterparts in Sicily last year.)
Another great night in San Miguel (which we did prefer greatly over Guanajuato, for what it’s worth).
A normal creche in the city’s main park during the day:
And a rather more contemporary version encountered in town that night:
Pretty happening square!
The most prominent Spanish aristocratic families in San Miguel, btw, supported the rebellion against the Spanish crown in 1810. As a result, they retained their haciendas and their palaces in town. To this day, some of the most valuable properties in town are still owned by less than a dozen noble Spanish families. This includes several, huge private churches around town that are open to the public only on specific feast days. And even then only for, like, a 7:30 AM mass, then they’re back outta there and doors are closed.
Dinner with a view that night at Quince:
And some unexpected entertainment (not sure this functions in email version of post):
And then a ringside table to the main event, of which we were completely unaware prior to sitting down here:
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(Not sure this functions in email version of post.)
A walk one morning straight up hill to the Mirador neighborhood occupying the heights over San Miguel.
Great views all along the way of downtown San Miguel:
Pretty good combo: a sign with the archangel and the dude’s church right below:
Some downtime at Rosewood:
Final dinner of the trip:
Adios, San Miguel.
And adios to our 2024 travels!
Pretty good year:
February: Colombia
April: Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru
May: Texas
June: Georgia
July – September: Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, New York, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Rhode Island
We are seriously going to try to post the entirety of our trip backlog this year. Starting with the remaining two dozen posts on this, our first, post-retirement, long-duration trip. Posts on WolfeStreetTravel.com unfortunately take a back seat, priority-wise, to trip planning and actual trips, relegating this activity to “when we have some time.” But the first half of this year offers a rare opportunity of no planned travel, so we should be able knock a bunch of backlogged posts out over the next 6 months. The reason for no planned travel is that the ACTUAL Wolfe Street (an actual place where we really do reside), is getting torn up for a sewer upsizing project that one of the WolfeStreetTravelers pressured the city into undertaking for reasons we don’t need to go into here. (The city’s project page is here.)
The reason we want to be in residence during this process and not in Japan or Slovenia or Ecuador or something is that we have 100-year-old clay lateral lines that connect our house to the sewer pipe in our street. Read that again. 100-year-old CLAY pipes. Seriously. Because these fragile artifacts are prone to damage during this construction, we don’t want to have to deal with problems remotely or, worse, cut short a trip to come home and deal with them. So, we’re sticking around until we can confirm that our fragile porcelain China plumbing fixtures are undamaged and the project has progressed beyond the point where they are endangered.
With that, back to travel.
After completing our detour north to picture-perfect Portofino, we finally headed south within the Italian peninsula to our next destination: the Roman ruins of Herculaneum. But the drive was unacceptably long (we try to keep our road trip daily drives to no more than 4 hours), so we stopped at a halfway point: Orvieto in Umbria. (This was not our first choice, however. We originally planned to stop in Montemerano, in southern Tuscany, based on its small, hill-town charm and a Michelin-starred restaurant there. But the restaurant abruptly cancelled our reservation during our planning phase, citing a private event, so we pivoted to another appealing stop that still would be approximately halfway between Portofino and Herculaneum.)
So, why Orvieto? Popes and history (and a cool perch on a defensive bluff). But before the popery and such, a little earlier history. As with Volterra, far to its north, Orvieto originated as an Etruscan metropolis, and celebrated, historic Etruscan tombs punctuate the area (none of which we had time to visit, but they sounded very cool, to be sure). Then, Rome overran the area in the 3rd century BC, then Western Roman Empire collapsed, then Goths controlled the area, then the Lombards, and – finally – the city became a self-governing commune in the 10th century. But one with close ties with the papacy that would grow closer still with each successive century.
Orvieto in the distance, seen from our lodging that evening.
Pope Benedict VII was fond of the city, and his nephew became consul of the commune in 1016; Orvieto became Benedict’s retreat from Rome. A pattern emerged, and Orvieto sported three papal palaces from their extended stays there by the 13th century. The role of papal retreat reached its apogee with Pope Urban IV, who resided in Orvieto instead of Rome from 1262 to 1264. (As an aside, we cannot recommend highly enough reading Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, in which Orvieto appears on every third page or something during the reign of the medieval popes. Regardless, a wildly entertaining, mildly entertaining history tome.)
Considering all of this, Orvieto fell under de facto papal control starting in 1200 and ultimately became an official part of the Papal States in 1354. This rule lasted until 1860, during Italian unification.
With that historical context addressed, let’s check out the town.
The Romanesque, 12th-century Sant’Andrea church and its distinctive, 13th-century decagonal bell tower.
The whole town is build on an escarpment, but the elevation doesn’t stop after you enter the walled town:
There are pretty cool, medieval warren of streets in some areas:
while others are more spaced out, like the street heading to the cathedral:
Orvieto’s primary attraction (other than the town-on-the-cliff itself): the 14th-century Duomo di Orvieto (also, the Cattredale di Santa Maria Assunta), seen here from la torre del Moro, which we’ll address below.
Those familiar with our posts from Cinque Terre will recognize the Ligurian Romanesque (or Pisan Romanesque) black-and-white stacked architectural style of the cathedral:
“The building was constructed under the orders of Pope Urban IV to commemorate and provide a suitable home for the Corporal of Bolsena, the relic of miracle which is said to have occurred in 1263 in the nearby town of Bolsena, when a traveling priest who had doubts about the truth of transubstantiation found that his Host was bleeding so much that it stained the altar cloth. The cloth is now stored in the Chapel of the Corporal inside the cathedral.” (From here.)
Pretty awesome, polychrome facade of the cathedral – a Late Middle Ages architectural masterpiece (but oddly still not as cool to us as the other polychrome facade we came across one evening in Lucca).
Bas relief of Genesis on the extreme left of the cathedral’s exterior:
The cathedral’s soaring exterior and trussed timber roof:
But its size is surprisingly intimate:
Frescos abound:
As do small chapels:
The later, 15th-century Chapel of the Corporal, with some pretty cool vaulting, all completely covered in frescoes (Christ in Judgement, apparently).
The remains of earlier decorations still visible in the cathedral (as well as alabaster windows, which are always of interest):
The visit to the cathedral complete, we headed to Torre del Moro (Tower of the Moor) built in 1200 for a view over Orvieto:
A view of the Capitano del Popolo, the Captain of the People (basically the representative head of the city):
A different perspective on the Sant’Andrea church and its decagonal bell tower encountered earlier when we entered Orvieto:
And then on to our lodging for the evening, a location we selected because of its similarly storied history.
“Locanda Palazzone is a historic residence from the medieval period. . . Taking into account its residential typology and its location of relative isolation in the countryside in the vicinity of Orvieto, it can be thought that the building may have been built as a “hospitalis,” in the sense of a hostel for prelates and wayfarers or a post station for pilgrims heading to Rome, since it was precisely in 1300 that Boniface VIII formalized the first Jubilee.”
View out the ornate window of our room. . .
which, if you crane your neck out an around. . .
allows for a view across the valley. . .
to Orvieto itself.
Pretty cool place with lots of history.
On to Herculaneum and an amazing time capsule of Roman culture!
When we decided to buy one-way plane tickets to Europe for our first prolonged foray to celebrate the second of the two retirements, we knew we wanted to return to Italy as a start, but the destinations within Italia, and certainly beyond, weren’t intuitive at the outset. We know we’d be in Tuscany because of the Brandts; we knew we wanted to visit the Amalfi Coast for the first time; we knew we wanted to spend time in Sicily; one of us knew he wanted to check out Herculaneum; the other knew she wanted to visit Portofino. But some locations we were familiar with, but were not on our list, nonetheless ended up on our itinerary simply because they were a convenient stopping point between one target and the next (like Orvieto).
Then, there’s Matera. Not only did Matera not rate a “let’s make sure we go there” spot on the aspirational list – it wasn’t even a town that was known to us. Instead, we stumbled upon this gem during trip planning.
As part of our planning process, the Chief Adventure Officer creates a Google Map with potential places of interest and – overlaid on top – hotels that are part of our favored collections (Relais & Chateau, Small Luxury Hotels, Design Hotels, Rosewood, and some others). If a location highlighted on travel sites or on Instagram looks appealing AND that is home to hotels from one or more of our collections, we figure it really is worth seeing, since boutique hotels wouldn’t be in some shit town. When we overlaid Design Hotels on the Italy map, the town of Matera was suddenly on our radar. And it was between the Amalfi Coast and Bari, where we’d be on a plane headed for Sardinia. So we started researching this new discovery.
Definitely the right choice
“Before its integration into the modern Italian state, the city of Matera had experienced the rule of the Romans, Lombards, Arabs, Byzantine Greeks, Swabians, Angevins, Aragonese, and Bourbons. Although scholars continue to debate the date the dwellings were first occupied in Matera, and the continuity of their subsequent occupation, the area of what is now Matera is believed to have been settled since the Palaeolithic (tenth millennium BC). This makes it potentially one of the oldest continually inhabited settlements in the world.” (From here.) (And we thought Cadiz‘ history was epic.)
Matera’s Sassi—neighborhoods of cave dwellings carved into soft limestone—provided shelter, water collection, and natural insulation. Over centuries, however, population growth and abandonment by the state turned this ingenious landscape into one of extreme deprivation: families lived packed into single-room caves, often sharing the space with livestock, with little ventilation, no running water, no sewage, and widespread disease. By the 19th and early 20th centuries, a stark social divide had formed – Matera’s poorest residents were confined to the Sassi while wealthier families, professionals, and institutions moved up to the piano, the healthier, flatter upper city with light, air, and services. This physical separation mirrored a deeper economic and social gulf, making the Sassi a powerful symbol of southern Italy’s poverty and exclusion. Only after World War II did national attention and government intervention begin to dismantle these conditions, setting Matera on a long path from neglect to preservation.
Carlo Levi, a fiercely anti-fascist doctor, was exiled by Mussolini’s regime to the Basilicata region in 1935 and he described Matera as proof that Italy was actually two civilizations: a modern, northern one and a forgotten, quasi-prehistoric southern one. “Inside those black caves that had walls made of soil, I could see the beds, the poor furnishings, the clothes hanging. Dogs, sheep, goats, and pigs were lying down on the floor. Typically, every family owns just one of those caves as a house, and they sleep all together: men, women, children, animals. There was an infinite number of children. . . sitting in the baking sun, on the doorsteps of their houses, into the dirt, their eyes were half closed and their eyelids red and swollen. This was due to trachoma. I knew that here people suffered from it: but seeing its effects in filth and in extreme poverty it is a different thing. . . it seemed to be in a city stricken by the plague.”
Despite the have and have not history of Matera and the primitive conditions of the sassi, this place has come into its own. Freaking amazing warren of troglodyte homes and alleys built into the soft limestone of the valley. It was like an inverted Gordes – picturesque and full of character.
At the edge of the sassi lies Chiesa del Purgatorio (Church of Purgatory).
The church was built in the 18th century and embodies baroque church architecture (which we’d see plenty of a couple of weeks later in central Sicily), but that’s not why it’s notable.
It’s notable for it’s embellishments everywhere that serve as reminders of mortality (memento mori),
and the need to pray for souls in pergatory.
The door is the coolest part.
“It’s decorated with four skulls of nobles and clergymen and just under these, four skulls representing common people, with four more on the side of the entrance.” (From here.)
But the skulls-on-a-plinth are a good look, too:
At the other end of town, a different religious institution: The Convent of Saint Augustine.
A relative latecomer, having been founded in 1591, it’s still a pretty impressive and monolithic structure, perched on a cliff at the very edge of the sassi.
And in its shadow, a humble rupestrian church (new term to us! we would have characterized this cave church as troglodyte [like we did in this post from Cappadocia], but rupestrian works too).
Founded in the 10th century, San Nicola Dei Greci originated as a Greek Orthodox church (see Byzantine Greek rule reference above
The triptych fresco depicting Saint Nicolas, Saint Barbara, and Saint Pantaleon (not to be confused with Saint Pantaloons, patron saint of trousers and culottes) dates from the 12th to 13th centuries:
Check this shit out! This is why Europe is so incredible; we were just wandering about a troglodyte church with 800-year-old frescos adorning its walls with the same casualness as walking into a Starbucks.
With that under our belt, we head out in search of some lunch.
Outside the sassi in the Piazza San Pietro Caveoso with the cathedral’s bell tower looming over town:
Chiesa di San Pietro Caveoso (The Church of Saints Peter and Paul, the latter of whom apparently went the way of Hamilton of Booz Allen Hamilton in the church name):
The original church dates to 1218, but the current appearance reflects a comprehensive overhaul in the 17th century. Picturesque, and with a well-positioned plaza facing the sassi (as noted above), it’s still not quite as cool as the rupestrian church above it.
“Dating to the 8th century, when it was built as the Benedictine Order’s first foothold in Matera, this cliff-face church has a number of 13th-century frescoes, including an unusual breastfeeding Madonna. The church originally comprised three aisles, with two later adapted as dwellings.” (From here.) We got to see the inside, which did indeed have multiple frescoes, as with the other rupestrian church, but no cameras were allowed in this one or in another one we popped into inside the sassi area.
A view of the other end of the sassi facing the valley:
What’s a town to do for a dump truck if most of the roads are narrow, up-and-down alleyways? This:
Also, a picture that captures the recycling specificity that uniquely characterizes Italy and no other country, European or otherwise, that we’ve visited:
We first encountered this during our second visit to Siena, and then at our AirB&B in Portofino. You’ve got to separate glass from metal from paper from food waste and from general refuse (not that there’s much left after all of that sorting). Which raises questions like, where do we deposit the paper coffee filter (paper) filled with coffee grounds (food waste)? Or this burnt out light bulb comprised of brass (metal) and glass (um, glass)? These are the challenges WolfeStreetTravel must cope with!
Heading out for aperitivos high up in the sassi and then dinner on our last night:
One of the best dinners of the visits, actually.
Pretty awesome conversion of a troglodyte church into a wine bar:
And some good freakin’ pesto:
Sassi day time:
Sassi night time:
The next morning, we retrieved our car for the drive to the Bari airport. In what appears to be a self-storage warehouse:
But behold! A bunch of tight garages for sassi residents who can’t bring their cars (for obvious reasons) into town:
And the weirdest car to date: a dr, which is an Italian car brand that uses Chinese auto bodies. Go figure. Regardless, this was our last day with it.
While our visit to Scala dei Turchi offered a little coastal sideshow during our stay in Agrigento, the Valley of the Temples (Valle dei Templi) provided the main event. We awoke to a pretty good view of our starting monument destination for the day: the Temple of Hera in the near distance.
Valle dei Templi is the site of ancient Akragas (now modern day Agrigento), a Greek colony founded around 582 BC by settlers from Gela and Rhodes that grew to become one of the most prosperous and powerful cities in the ancient Mediterranean world, with a population at its peak that ancient sources suggest may have rivaled Athens itself. The complex preserves seven Doric temples built primarily during the fifth century BC. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, the Valley of the Temples stands as one of the supreme monuments of Greek civilization outside of Greece itself, embodying the extraordinary cultural and artistic ambition of Magna Graecia — the network of Greek colonies across southern Italy and Sicily — and representing an irreplaceable testament to a moment when this corner of the ancient world was at the very center of Mediterranean civilization.
Getting closer. . .
Closer. . .
This is what we had been gazing at from afar.
The Temple of Hera (or Juno, if you prefer your gods Roman), is not actually a temple to Hera (or Juno). This attribution resulted from a misunderstanding of the location in a Greek text by Pliny the Elder during the much later Roman period.
No correction on the temple’s correct name was evident anywhere, though.
Regardless, the Greek colonists erected the temple in 450 BC, and was sacked and burned in 406 BC during a Carthaginian attack on the Greeks.
The Valley of the Temples is absolutely a misnomer: we’re actually on a ridge.
Partial remains of the city’s 6th-century-BC walls:
Which include early Christian, 2nd-century-AD arcosolium (arched, recessed) tombs carved directly into the walls themselves.
The star of the temple complex in the distance:
The Temple of Concordia is among the best-preserved Greek temples anywhere on earth — its remarkable survival owed largely to its conversion into a Christian church in the sixth century AD. “The temple was. . . dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul by San Gregorio delle Rape, bishop of Agrigento and thus survived the destruction of pagan places of worship. The spaces between the columns were filled with walling, altering its Classical Greek form [we’d see the same thing in dramatic form when we hit Syracusa two stops later]. . . The Christian refurbishments were removed during the restoration of 1785.” (From here.)
But it was built 1100 years before that, between 440 and 430 BC.
Similar to the misnamed Temple of Juno, the temple was associated with Concordia, the Roman goddess of harmony, simply because a Roman-era Latin inscription that included Concordia was found nearby. It was unrelated to the temple, but this trend of blatantly misnaming the monuments here IS related to our growing sense of annoyance.
The Temple of Concordia is considered to be the best preserved Doric temple in the world, after the Parthenon.
WHAT characterizes a Doric temple, you ask? Question answered by a historical marker at the temple:
Yup, no Ionic or Corinthian columns here. Just a delightful density of Dorics.
But the Doric department hasn’t yet departed. Just down the path lies yet another temple.
Behold, the remains of the Temple of Heracles (or Hercules, you Roman). And yet another BS misidentification. This one from another Cicero screed, mentioning a temple dedicated to Hercules not far from the Agrigento forum. But no one is sure that this is the one he was referencing. No worrries! In the apparent expediency of historo-archeology, researchers stuck the moniker on this half stack of columns and called it a day.
Not to content themselves with just misNAMING temples, they (we’re not sure who they is at this point), thought it would be a great idea to reconstruct a temple using pieces from various OTHER temples.
Behold, the Frankenstein Temple of the Dioscuri (Greek for “Sons of Zeus” – the twin deities Castor and Pollux). Luckily, they just contended themselves with building a corner out of mismatched, supersized Legos found on site.
Lots of other pieces lying around, though.
And finally, Atlas Shrugged (and then sat for a bit, and then just lay down for good). This is one of a few massive Atlas statues extant on site from an aborted attempt to build a massive (really massive) Temple of the Olympian Zeus.
In its reclining position, you can’t tell, but this thing is more than 25 feet tall (long in its current orientation).
Here’s another, upright in the Agrigento museum, with a passer by for scale:
Had the Temple of Olympian Zeus been completed, it would have been the largest Greek temple ever constructed, featuring the Atlas’ serving as telamones supporting its entablature:
But, alas, the temple never really got off the ground. Construction commenced around 480 BCE (part of the base is below) after a major victory by Akragas Greeks over the Carthaginians at the Battle of Himera. At the time, Akragas was one of the richest Greek cities in the Mediterranean and the temple would be a statement of Akragas’s wealth and power.
But the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily in 406 BCE put an end to this. Akragas was besieged, many inhabitants fled, the economy collapsed, and monumental construction projects ceased. Leaving just this:
All of this is better viewed from a distance of both time and space from the comfort of our plunge pool at the end of a long day among ruins in the sun:
Our place was too inviting to venture out on either of the nights of our stay. Pretty good decision.
Next up: fast forwarding 2100 years and 90 miles from Agrigento to Modica and the first of our visits to the “Baroque Towns” of Sicily.
From Taormina, Sicily, we flew a very short hop to the island nation of Malta, country no. 79 for WolfeStreetTravel (and one we’d been eying ever since planning The Smallest 5 for the Big 5-0 trip to Europe’s micronations in 2017).
Malta also represents the third-to-last leg of our post-retirement prolonged foray to Europe trip, the overview and map of which are posted here. We’d spend 4 nights in Malta, and the dry little island nation did not disappoint.
Malta’s Grand Harbor upon arrival:
The island’s history includes Phoenician, Carthaginian, and Roman occupation before the Arabs transformed it between 870 and 1090 AD, leaving a lasting imprint on the Maltese language, which remains Semitic at its core.
The Normans then took Malta, beginning a long stretch of Christian rule that culminated in 1530 when Holy Roman Emperor Charles V granted the island to the Knights Hospitaller after the order lost their previous base of operations, the island of Rhodes, to the Ottoman Turks. (The emperor also granted them the city of Tripoli in modern Libya, but the Ottomans ran them out of town there, as well, leaving them with only Malta [and a small town in the Holy Roman Empire, which they controlled until the early 19th century and Napoleon]).
While under Hospitaler control, the Ottomans continued their westward expansion across the Mediterranean, and targeted Malta as their next conquest. In 1565, the Hospitallers – left essentially to fend for themselves – repelled a prolonged Ottoman siege in one of history’s most dramatic defensive stands. Pretty epic tale. (And a good read – we finished Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World before we arrived to give us a good feel for what we were getting into; definitely recommended if you’re into that sort of thing.) After fending off the siege, the Hospitalers transformed some fortifications opposite the Grand Harbor into their capital city and named it Valletta after Jean Parisot de Valette, their Grand Master, who led the defense of the island.
Britain took control of Malta in 1800 after helping the Maltese expel the French forces that had occupied the island following Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion in 1798. Although Britain initially intervened as an ally, it retained Malta because its central Mediterranean location and excellent natural harbor made it a vital naval base for protecting British trade routes and projecting military power. Britain refused to return the island as required by the Treaty of Amiens, and Malta remained a British colony until it gained independence in 1964.
During Britain’s rule of the island in WWII, Malta became a critical naval hub and endured one of the most sustained aerial bombardments of the entire war, earning the troops the George Cross collectively from King George VI in 1942. Fort Angelo on the peninsula of Birgu, which was manned by the British Navy during WW II, seen from across the harbor from the peninsula of Senglea (we’d eventually visit it):
Malta gained independence in 1964, became a republic in 1974, and joined the European Union in 2004, completing a journey from ancient temple-builders to modern European democracy in one of the Mediterranean’s most strategically contested stretches of rock.
Our hotel in the background was located in a decommissioned fortress on Senglea, one of Malta’s historic Three Cities on a spit of land across the Grand Harbor from Valetta, the capital city.
First lunch in town on Senglea – pretty great start to our stay (we’d return there for our final dinner):
Walking along the Grand Harbor; we stayed on the left, the peninsula of Senglea; the parallel peninsula of Birgu is to the left, and Valletta itself is straight ahead.
The fortifications around Valletta, passed as we arrived from the water taxi stand many stories below the city elevation (there’s an outdoor elevator to get you from there to here):
The narrow and atmospheric streets of Valletta:
Punctuated by the city’s uniquely characteristic and multicolored gallarija:
“The gallarija is considered a descendant of the Maltese muxrabija, and it is closely related to the mashrabiya which are typical in Arabic architecture. . . [which consist of] an ornate timber screen, perforated with an intricate network of holes, tightly fitted into a window or loggia. . . Muxrabijet had the task to keep the interior of the building cool by allowing circulation of air through the carved wood. They were also used as cooling device for storing water, and as a security measure to observe the outside without being seen.“
Pretty much every single street in Valletta was flanked by gallarija.
A city of limestone, punctuated by brightly colored wood elements. Pretty picturesque.
Water taxi ride back to Senglea:
Our hotel occupied one of the Hospitalers’ old fortresses, which was freakin’ awesome. The walls in the rooms were 3′ thick and you could feel the history. Plus, this pool:
Pretty great perch of the Grand Harbor.
View from our room’s cannon embrasure-cum-window:
Very cool little harbor area off the Grand Harbor on Birgu that was, um, harboring a very nice restaurant.
Access to the restaurant was gained through the abandoned tunnels of Fort St. Angelo.
After walking around, sailing around, and walking under Fort St. Angelo, we finally decided to actually visit the place.
“The fort was garrisoned by the British from 1800 to 1979, at times being classified as a stone frigate known as HMS Egmont or later HMS St Angelo. The fort suffered considerable damage during World War II, but it was later restored.“
Map of the fortifications with dates delineating the evolution of the fort from the Hospitalers’ era in the 1500s (and even earlier to 1091 for one of the chapels that predated – by a long stretch – their arrival) to the 1940s:
View over to Senglea across the harbor:
Inside a watchtower on the very tip of the fort and of Birgu; the tip of Senglea is out the right window, but you can’t tell.
Another evening in Malta after a day trip to Mdina, which will cover in another post. Unbelievable weather the entire time, though.
Unexpected fireworks towards the end of dinner:
The dome of Hospitalers’ (Order of St. John’s / Knights of St. John’s) St. John Co-Cathedral in Valletta:
St. John’s Co-Cathedral was built between 1573 and 1578 by the Knights of St. John as their conventual church following the Great Siege of Malta, with its austere exterior designed by Maltese architect Girolamo Cassiere concealing one of the world’s most lavish Baroque interiors.
It’s a co-cathedral (we had never heard of this before) because the original (and still) bishop’s seat on Malta was in the interior town of Mdina at St. Paul’s Cathedral. But the Hospitalers new one got recognized by the Pope, as well, and he granted it equal cathedral status, as a co-cathedral. One bishop, two cathedrals. Pretty wild.
Today, the co-cathedral is Malta’s most important religious and artistic monument, symbolizing the power and legacy of the Knights Hospitaller while serving as one of Europe’s finest examples of Baroque architecture and a centerpiece of Valletta’s UNESCO World Heritage status.
Spectacular ceiling of the co-cathedral
Way better to us was the floor – the entire place was occupied by elaborate tombs of the Knights of St. John:
Most of which included macabre elements, to our delight:
One of the greatest treasures of St. John’s Co-Cathedral and one of the masterpieces of Western art is Caravaggio’s The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608). It’s the cathedral’s most famous work and the reason many art lovers travel to Malta.
It’s significant for the following reasons:
It is Caravaggio’s largest painting. Measuring roughly 3.6 × 5.2 meters (12 × 17 feet), it is the largest canvas he ever painted and one of the few works created specifically as an altarpiece.
It is Caravaggio’s only signed painting. If you look near the pool of blood beneath John the Baptist’s neck, you’ll find the artist’s signature: “f. Michelangelo” (“Fra Michelangelo”), written in the blood. He signed it this way because he had just been admitted as a Knight of the Order of St. John—a unique moment in his tumultuous life.
Saint Jerome Writing, also by Caravaggio, painted around 1607–1608 during his stay in Malta, depicting Saint Jerome translating the Bible into Latin, with the skull symbolizing the fleeting nature of life.
Check out the discrete Maltese cross Caravaggio included in the bottom right of the painting, paying homage to the patrons who funded it. . .
Next up: Mdina, Malta, and then, finally, some biking.
While staying in the Valletta area, we grabbed an Uber for a field trip to Mdina, the Maltese capital’s forerunner until the 16th century. After the Knights of St. John made the new fortified town of Valletta their capital after the Great Siege of 1565, Mdina faded in significance and slid into backwater status significantly enough to be nicknamed the “Silent City.” Based on our stroll throughout town, this is pretty apt, although Silent Sunburnt City may be even more on brand.
Founded as a fortified settlement by the Phoenicians around the 8th century BC, the town later became the Roman city of Melite. Under Arab rule beginning in the 9th century, it was reduced and fortified into the compact medieval city that became known as Mdina. (The Arabs also separated the fortified city from the surrounding area—creating what became Mdina, literally the city, while the adjoining suburb became Rabat, meaning suburb or quarter in Arabic. We’d visit both during our little field trip.)
Mdina’s Baroque Main Gate, dating from 1724. Built during the rule of the Hospitallers, it replaced the medieval entrance that was destroyed during the 1693 Sicily earthquake nearby (which gave rise to the Baroque Towns we visited just prior, in Sicily).
The gate is flanked by two lions, which are associated with Antonio Manoel de Vilhena, the Grand Master of the Order of St. John in Malta during the late 18th century, as well as Vilhena’s coat of arms over the gate proper.
Extant fortifications of the city on either side.
Inside Mdina proper, on the other side of the Main Gate:
And this is what the entire town is like: sun-baked, narrow alleyways flanked by golden limestone:
Punctuated occasionally by colorful doors and knockers:
Heading back through the Main Gate, and down the street. . .
And down the street, much to the excitement of one and definitely not the other WolfeStreetTravler, to. . .
More catacombs! This will be our fourth set on this trip alone; first in Matera, then, the absolute grossest in Palermo, and TWO in Syracusa.
St. Paul’s Catacombs, located in Rabat just outside Mdina, form one of Malta’s most important ancient burial complexes, dating primarily from the Phoenician, Roman and Byzantine periods, but they continued to be actively used into the 7th or 8th century AD.
Carved into the island’s soft limestone, the underground complex contains an intricate network of burial chambers, corridors and rock-cut tombs that once formed part of a much larger cemetery outside of what was the Phoenician (and later Roman) settlement of Melite that predates Mdina and Rabat.
Hundreds of tombs across a complex of 24 interconnected catacombs are down here.
Most are now empty.
Some most certainly are not.
Every space was optimize to fit more bodies in.
Although tradition associates the catacombs with St. Paul, who was said to have been shipwrecked on Malta in AD 60, there is no archaeological evidence that he ever visited or was buried here. What makes the site especially compelling is the coexistence of pagan, Jewish and Christian burial traditions, offering a remarkable glimpse into Malta’s religious and cultural transformation during late antiquity.
Heading back out.
What to do now that we’re back in the glorious sunshine of a Maltese afternoon?
More catacombs! This time St. Agatha’s, just down the road. (This pretty much put an end to the catacomb visits; one of the WolfeStreetTravelers definitely had enough of this nonsense during the current trip, although her indulgence up until now was pretty amazing.)
Unlike St. Paul’s, which has one central entrance, the catacomb complex at St. Agatha’s offered multiple, small individual entrances / access shafts.
Entering each catacomb was a little reminiscent of Maxwell Smart and the phone booth at the start of the show.
As with St. Paul’s, St. Agatha’s catacombs complex contain a mixture of Phoenician/Roman, Jewish and Christian burials.
Some of which had fresh tomb tops (not to be confused with mummy tube tops).
One of the occupants:
Back on Senglea and the Grand Harbor, our final dinner before heading to France for our penultimate leg. We bookended our stay on Malta by dining at the same restaurant at which we had our first, awesome lunch upon our arrival. Good call.
The experienced enhanced by these dudes rowing by in a plastic crate.
The penultimate leg of our prolonged foray to Europe: France! We’ve already hit mainland Italy, Sardinia, Sicily, and Malta (trip overview, including legs, is here).
We flew from Malta to Paris to bike through Normandy with Thomas and Lisa, but left a day early to guard against any flight issues or other delays that might impact our connecting with them when they arrived from Atlanta the next morning. Rather than stay in Paris, which we had visited three times and which, frankly, we didn’t particularly like, we headed about 30 miles north to the Chateau de Chantilly and its little town.
We checked in to our hotel a short walk away from the chateau, headed down the street for some lunch, then headed to the chateau itself.
The chateau largely dates from the 19th century, when the Duke of Aumale rebuilt the structure on the foundations of a medieval fortress.
The chateau’s formal gardens were designed by the same landscape architect credited with designing the grounds of Versailles.
Barrel-vaulted, highly decorated ceiling above the grand staircase:
Mosaic above the fireplace in the Salle des Gardes depicting the Rape of Europa by Jupiter:
But it’s not just a 19th-century French mosaic, it’s a Roman mosaic dating to the 1st century AD recovered from around Herculaneum, where we wandered just a month or so ago on this trip. Freakin’ crazy to have this just mounted here.
Libery:
The Rotunda of the Musée Condé at Château de Chantilly, created by the Duke of Aumale to display his art collection, with Henri Chapu’s marble Joan of Arc at Domrémy beneath Paul Baudry’s ceiling painting of the Abduction of Psyche
Just your normal decorative French fire screen; nothing to see here. . .
Heading to the stables. . .
Just as grand as the chateau itself.
Stables: huge. Horses therein: not so much.
Old-school carriages:
Just a pretty cool suspension and paint job.
Stage coach driver uniform:
His boots were not worn, but instead affixed directly to his saddle.
We spent the night at a nice Relais & Chateau hotel next to Chateau de Chantilly, then woke up the next morning to meet Thomas and Lisa upon their disembarkation in CDG from their redeye from ATL. But WolfeStreetTravel’s Chief Adventure Officer, who’s in charge of the entire itinerary, mistook their takeoff time (at around 6:30 PM) for their landing time (at around 9:00 AM) and so we left the hotel WAY too early, missed a nice breakfast, and ended up trying to sleep a little more in the lobby of one of the airport hotels at CDG while we waited for Thomas and Lisa. One more screw up, but luckily a minor one (although the WolfeStreetTravel Navigator was pretty annoyed that she lost sleep over this, literally).
