To the Southern Coast of Italy

We took our first Italian road trip as a family of five!One of Paul’s goals for our 4 years in Italy is to see every one of this country’s 20 regions. Now that we’ve just spent a week touring Calabria and Basilicata, there are only 2 more to go (they’re in the north and we’ll be there at the end of the month!) We drove to the southern tip of Italy for this trip. Over two days, with a casual 3 or 4 hours of drive time each day, we reached the toe of the boot. In the first 10 minutes however, we had our first bout of throw-up from the backseat. At least Estelle slept it off for most of the morning from that point on.

For our first night, we were headed to Matera, a town that was once an embarrassment to Italy because it’s full of caves and in Mussolini’s day, people were still living there in slum-like conditions. It’s actually an ancient city and as you can see, there’s nothing to be shy about these days. It’s amazing.

Perched on a hill is this incredibly restored place where people have lived for thousands of years. And across the ridge are more caves, part of a national park.

Amid the ruins and gorgeous scenery, it’s all spas, restaurants and luxury hotels. Paul outdid himself with this hotel find; Phoebe was beside herself that we were staying in a cave and kept asking about bears. (I’m pretty sure we can thank the book, “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” for that!) Our room was really carved out of the rock, and had been for quite some time! All the furnishings were in the rustic style, except the super sleek tub.

We spent our afternoon exploring, up steps, into fountains…then we made our way to dinner. A pretty late dinner, starting at 8pm. One hour later than the girls are typically in bed every night.So there was a little of this.

And a little of that.

But mostly this.In the morning we had breakfast in the hotel’s gorgeous dining room, with other guests from France, London among other lovely spots. (The English guys talked to us; the French did not.) Then made our way to our next hotel. This one was on the beach which meant fewer steps and more waves coming our way.