SOUTHERN ITALY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 January 1944, Page 4

SOUTHERN ITALY

refreshing change from DESERT

MANY SCENIC ATTRACTIONS. EVIDENCE OF FEUDAL SYSTEM. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) ITALY, December 12. After the deserts of Africa, New Zealanders find Southern Italy a country of refreshing contrasts. Despite the fuel that heavy rains have caused some discomfort, and that the north wind is keen to those used to the breezes of Egypt, men of the Division are unanimous in their preference for Europe. The drivers look forward to journeys of a length they used to dread when all they could see for hundreds of miles was a succession of dunes and escarpments.

The country about the heel and instep of Italy provides a scries of panoramas of field and farm, intersected by main roads which are excellent and by secondary roads of hard-packed clay. Everywhere there are villages and fair-sized towns, each, with its claim for scenic beauty. Sometimes it is a church (and there are many of great antiquity), sometimes a Roman aqueduct or amphitheatre, sometimes a Swabian archway. The ancient feudal system is still very much alive in this country, in which the old and the new are inextricably mingled. Manor houses and the farms of retainers arc frequent. It was in one of these that the Division had its first headquarters. Similar scenery extends right un to the main highway from the picturesque port of Taranto to the fine modern city of Bari.

From Brindisi one of the most beautiful coastal routes of the world runs northward. Before setting out on it, one may prefer to detour through Lecco, famous for its Roman amphitheatre and its church. New Zealanders have found the shopping in Locce unusually profitable, as it is off the main highway —a pleasant backwater with a mere 50,000 of population. Brindisi itself is something of a disappointment, being perhaps a little overrun with regulations for the average New Zealander. The seventy-mile run up the coast to Bari brings a succession of glimpses of the Adriatic, dotted with the innumerable schooners and caiques of the Mediterranean fishermen. Their harbours are the tiny coves which indent the shoreline, guarded by age-old turreted sea walls. The villages are the embodiment of a painter’s dream, each with its own claim to the picturesque. As one travels north, a change in the architecture of the farmhouses is noticeable. Around Osrunu and Fasano there are more and more examples of the curious, beehive-like dwellings known locally as “trulli.” They are built on a basic plan that is unvarying —a circular wall of stone topped with a conical roof made of thick black tiles. Often the roof carries an odd ornamentation in lighter tiles. Additions to the buildings are made by the construction of other trulli, so that a large farmhouse consists of something that looks like an interlocked group of beehives. The town of Alberobello contains many hundreds of these novel homes.

The coastal roads are interesting enough, but the byways around Bari lead to unsuspected scenic attractions. Of these perhaps the most unusual is the limestone cave district which centres round the grottoes of Castellana and Putignano. The Casteliana caves, the better example of the two, are reached by way of a broad concrete staircase of 222 steps, leading into a vast cavern over 200 feet below ground. From here the visitor passes into a world of unreality, illuminated by the beam of the guide's torch, and by concealed electric light. The trail leads through seven great caves to the edge of an abyss which extends another three miles. Casteliana compares favourably with Waitomo, even though there are no glow-worms. Its attractions include the Altar, with its Virgin Mary; the Organ Pipes, composed of slender translucent stalactites and stalagmites which ring musically when touched; the Hall of Statues; fossilised skulls of animals; waving folds of alabaster less than half an inch thick, through which the light of a lantern will shine; the “Lupa di Roma,” or ! she-wolf of Rome; and many vistas of a fairy-J ike beauty. From Castellana you can travel on the byways to Bari through the rich grape country of Conversano and Rutigliano, stopping to sample the local vintage in each town, which is dominated by its ancient church; or through the olive trees to Casamassima and Valenzano. Even then you have missed the ruins of Gravina, the churches of Altamura and Torli.zzi, the fountainspring of Acquaviva, and the impressive Cartel del Monte.

In and around Bari itself are many sights which are novel and interesting to a New Zealander, though he would prefer to make his first call at the stadium, with a seating capacity of 35,000, where a game of Rugby football is. usually in progres. By the time he reaches Bari,’ however, he has shaken off the memory of the wastes of the desert, and is a confirmed sightseer keen to push on and see what the north has in store.