Last Day - Day 7 - Picciano - Matera ~ 31 km
Here we go, last day of the Camino. I can't even believe it. Time has gone by very very quickly since I started walking.
174 kilometres walked
The city by day
The city by night
You know you're in a classy place when the plate is bigger than the portion. But the food really was delicious.
My credential (I was a bit lazy with collecting the stamps)
I can't believe this used to be a job
Someone had a really bad mushroom trip. The best present to freak out someone you know.
I got a transfer back to Picciano in the morning with Fernando (thanks again priest guy 😑) at 7am. So I could continue my walk where I finished the day before. Due to my exhaustion, the day before I didn't have dinner nor breakfast today (or even lunch for that matter 😔). I didn't mean to starve myself, I was just too tired to get up yesterday after the hike. And today nothing was open at 7am where I could buy food. But strangely I was not hungry, I guess my brain was busy focusing on the hike.
My feet were quite painful in the beginning because of the multiple blisters so I walked quite slowly. But with time I stopped noticing it and could walk normal.
Nothing really eventful happened on my hike today so the majority of this blogpost will focus on Matera and my experiences here because that's much more interesting.
The scenery again was breathtaking and I felt very grateful to be able to experience on the last day. The weather forecast was sunny all day without rain which was amazing and the perfect end for my last day. It meant I didn't have to rush and I could take regular breaks.
The hike went past a lake where I could take an hour break.
Towards the end of my hike I had to cross a stream barefoot which was pretty cool.
The hardest part of the day was the last 2 hours with 600 metres ascend. Especially because I ran out of water so I was very dehydrated.
I would love to say that the last kilometres were very emotional and meaningful, but to be honest I was so tired and thirsty I just wanted to get to Matera as soon as possible.
And eventually, I did!
I'm very proud of myself and I can't believe it's over. I'm going to do a separate takeaways and reflections post but I can say that this walk was possibly the most challenging thing I have ever had to do by myself. I have had to do more challenging things in my life but with all of them I could get help from other people. But this time it was just me all alone in the middle of nowhere in Puglia, no one else. It definitely made me more independent and it taught me that I can do whatever I set my mind to.
My feet were a lot better in the evening than any other evenings before. It was because today I had time to rest and didn't walk 5-6 hours without rest. So it would have been a much more fun time if I could take rests in previous days too. But it's still better to have painful feet than walking in thunderstorms in empty fields.
The evening in Matera was spent with celebration with the two Katerinas who arrived in Matera the day before I did.
Matera is incredible. One of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. And is actually the oldest city in Italy AND in Europe. When you look at the landscape it feels like you're in Game of Thrones or time travelled to mediaval times or even earlier. The city is over 9,000 years old! Which is just insane and very hard to comprehend. It has been here since 7,000 B.C. It's really unique to see a city with so much history. People lived in the cave dug holes until the 1950s. People used to live with their lifestock to heat up the cold cave-like houses. But it was so unhygienic, it caused many illnesses and the Italian government relocated people from their homes to modern houses outside the old part. So Matera was left abandoned for 20 years, and was like a ghost town. Until the local government invested in refurbishing the area in the 1980s (facts learnt from the two Katarinas).
It's so untouched by civilization from the distance, the only thing makes you realise you're in 2023 are the passing bougey sport cars. And yes, Matera is very visibly classy. The latest James Bond movie, No time to Die was shot here (and Gravina) and everyone seems to think they're James Bond, because they all drive Ferraris, Teslas and Aston Martins.
We went out to celebrate last night and had dinner in a fancy cave restaurant. Everyone in Matera was dressed very elegantly, I felt quite underdressed.
I spent the next day discovering Matera. I went to the Cathedral which was the end point of the Cammino. There was a big queue and everyone else apart from me had to pay an entry fee to the Cathedral but not me with my Cammino Materano credential. While the entry would have been only €3.50, it felt very nice to get some acknowledgement and reward for completing the walk.
I also went to a museum that showcased how people used to live in the cave houses of Matera which was fascinating.
I'm going to spend another few days exploring the area, eating and drinking what Puglia and Basilicata has to offer. But I won't be documenting that as it has nothing to do with the Cammino Materano. I will end the blog series with a reflection blogpost where I evaluate the expectations I set in the beginning of the walk and reflect on what I learnt.
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