Appennino Slow - Guided Hiking in Italy

Appennino Slow is a Bologna-based consortium company that operates mainly in the slow and sustainable tourism sector, organizing slow-paced trips throughout Italy, on foot or by bike, with an approach that is careful, responsible, and authentic.

While working on a national scale, their focus remains deeply connected to their local territory, the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, which they know deeply and love to share. This identity is also reflected in their direct involvement in managing routes such as the Via degli Dei (The Way of The Gods) a 126-km walk between Bologna and Florence.

The Cammino Materano section on this guided trip was the 72-km section of the Via Ellenica between Castellaneta and Matera.

Website - www.appenninoslow.it

Bari Airport Train

A new line was opened from Bari Airport to Bari Central Station in 2013, known as the FM2 or FR2 line. The trains are frequent, with forty-one trains per day on weekdays and thirty-three trains per day at weekends. Trains start at the airport at 5-26 a.m end end from the airport at 11-38 p.m., and run every 20 or 30 minutes. The journey from the airport to Bari Central takes approximately 17 minutes, with the train stopping off at five stations including:-

- Fermata Aeroporto
- Fermata Europa
- Stazione Fesca San Girolamo
- Fermata Via Crispi
- Fermata Brigata Bari
- Fermata Via Quintino Sella
- Stazione Centrale

The train may skip one or more of these intermediate stations depending upon the time of day.

The platform at the airport is a 10 minute walk away from the terminal, with a series of tunnels leading you to the platform. The cost is Euro 5.10 from the airport to Bari Central. The tickets can be used on any train, with validation upon boarding.

Discover the Via Ellenica section of the Cammino Materano, crossing on foot the extraordinary Terra delle Gravine, a unique landscape in Italy, where nature, history and culture have been intertwined for millennia. Walk from Castellaneta to Matera along paths that run along imposing canyons, rock villages, farms, woods and plateaus that smell of Mediterranean scrub.

The Via Ellenica is a route that connects two UNESCO sites, Alberobello and the Sassi of Matera; and that crosses a territory studded with natural and anthropic wonders: the ravines, deep rocky gorges that house medieval rock churches; the ancient pine forests crossed by shepherds in transhumance; the wheat fields that open like a golden sea; the farms that dot the landscape with their essential architecture.

Stage after stage enter villages full of history, where hospitality is still an ingrained value: Laterza, overlooking its canyon;  Ginosa, with its suspended rock villages; Montescaglioso, with the abbey of San Michele Arcangelo that dominates the hill. Each place is a meeting with ancient traditions, authentic flavors and stories that speak of an intimate and surprising Puglia and Basilicata. The journey ends in the unmistakable light of  Matera, a city that is unlike any other: a stone labyrinth, a "little Jerusalem" set in the rock.Matera

Stage 1. Crossing the Olive Groves and Meditedrranean Scrub
24.10 km Elevation gain: 783m Elevation Loss: 687m

We will leave Castellaneta walking through expanses of olive trees and small country roads, heading towards the Montecamplo nature reserve. We will gradually climb the hills, with views that embrace the Gulf of Taranto, Basilicata and the Calabrian mountains.

We will cross a large area of Mediterranean scrub and medicinal plants until we take a spectacular path that runs for miles on the edge of the Laterza canyon, one of the deepest canyons in Europe. After passing the Lipu Oasis, we will reach Laterza, where we will spend the night and have dinner with local products.

The LIPU Oasis is a nature reserve managed by LIPU (Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli, the Italian League for the Protection of Birds / BirdLife Italia) to safeguard wetlands, forests, and endangered wildlife across Italy

Stage 2. Entering the Ginosa rave between pine forests and rock villages
15.50 km Elevation gain: 253m Elevation Loss: 341m

We will leave Laterza along country roads immersed in olive trees to the pine forest of Murgia San Pellegrino, an area historically crossed by shepherds in transhumance. The Murgia is the karst plateau of Apulia.The last kilometers will take us into the Ginosa rove, a wild setting where nature and history have coexisted since prehistoric times.

We will arrive in Ginosa through the cave villages of Casale and Rivolta, characterized by cave-houses and overlapping paths. Typical dinner and overnight stay.

Stage 3. Towards the monastery of Montescaglioso
14.00 km Elevation gain: 450m Elevation Loss: 331m

We will reach the Abbey of San Michele Arcangelo, a symbolic place of the village. The evening will be dedicated to a dinner in a home restaurant with typical dishes and live popular music.

Closing the path in the city carved into the rock

We wake up in Matera, a city with a unique historical heritage and perfect to explore calmly. After breakfast you will have free time to visit the Sassi, return to the places that struck you the day before or walk in the city center. Then, return home independently.

Cammino Materano refers to a network of six routes, called Vie or Via, that start from six different cities in the south of Italy and all converge in Matera. So there isn’t a single Cammino Materano, but six distinct routes that cross four regions and meet in the city of the Sassi.

Of these six routes, only one is currently fully open: it’s the Via Peuceta, which starts in Bari. It was the first to be inaugurated about ten years ago and is the most traveled, so it’s possible that when people refer to the “Cammino Materano” they mean this specific route.

As of today, in addition to the Via Peuceta, there are two other routes that are open, although only partially: they are the Via Ellenica from Alberobello and the Via Lucana from Tricarico. The other three routes have been designed but are not yet ready: the Via Jonica from Finibus Terrae, the Via Sveva from Trani, and the Via Dauna from Termoli.

Lastly, “Cammino Materano” is not only the name of the routes but also refers to the organization that created and manages them—an association responsible for maintaining the paths, promoting them, and coordinating the project as a whole.

Total

72.1

1,975

1,848