More Matera.

Our awesome tour guide, Luigi.

Trying to warm up : )

We took about a 2.5 hour private walking tour through Matera on Saturday afternoon. It was about 45 degrees outside and very windy. We were all very cold, but very glad that we did it because we learned things about the city that we would have never known. Our tour guide was great and had lived in Matera his whole life so could give us some great stories about the city. The only big breakdown was when JJ wanted to run through the old rock churches that had huge drop offs that were only protected by a small fence. JJ thought it was hilarious, Brian didn't think so, and I was too distracted by Luigi's amazing stories about the church to really notice!

We went out to dinner on Saturday night and it was our first experience with the "true" Italian dinner schedule. Matera was the first place that we've been that's not super touristy yet so they haven't changed their schedules to suit ours! On Friday night we found a restaurant that was open at 7:15 pm, but I refused to eat at the same place two nights in a row during vacation, so we needed to find a new place Saturday night. We walked all around the town and the earliest we found was a restaurant that opened at 7:45, so that's where we went and it was amazing. Brian wasn't a fan of the time that we ate dinner, but you can't complain when your dinner is great.

One of our favorite things about being in Italy is that we can order JJ a very cheap pizza for dinner and they bring it out right when it's ready, hot out of the wood fired oven. It gives Brian and I an excuse to eat pizza as an appetizer as we're waiting for our own meals : )