Altamura's Cathedral is a mixture of styles but has the profusion of carvings and an example of a magnificent rose window that we have got used to seeing in this area. There are plenty of guests inside the church awaiting the arrival of the bride through the magnificent doorway

The tiny church of San Niccolo is not open, but has a large external mural. Nearby, a street trader is trying to sell carpets and brooms. The town's archaeological museum is very interesting particularly telling the story of this area - The High Murge, an elevated plateau noted for its poor vegetation. The museum has some excellent pottery examples  and some skeletons  with their grave goods that date from the 6th-Century BC. After getting sandwiches and coffee we drive some 12-kilometres west to Gravina di Puglia - described by the guide book as "a castle-protected town clinging to the edge of a deep ravine"

We find Gravina to be a small town, and looking for the Cathedral, we drive towards irs centre. We are soon amongst a warren of very narrow, one-way streets. The streets get narrower, at some points barely wide enough for the Peugeot to get through. Fortunately, there is no other traffic and we are able to proceed by going through a number of 'No Entry' signs where the road is just wide enough for the car.

 

We emerge into the Viale Orsini where we are able to park and admire a splendid clock (right) attached to the side of a tower. The Cathedral is rather plain compared to the magnificently carved examples we have got used to seeing, and there is little else to admire in this somewhat dilapidated old town. We walk to the ravine where there are the remains of some old cave dwellings and a sign refers to the cave-church of San Michele delle Grotto which we are unable to identify with certainty.

 

We find a church with a gruesome doorway and another where a wedding is taking place - the fourth wedding we have seen today. Feeling that we have not discovered all there is to see in Gravina, we return to Trani

From our accommodation in Trani, we walk to the local supermarket to buy some bread, ham, and cheese to make our evening meal. There is a long queue at the checkout and a second girl comes forward to open another till and serves us; she is the girl we annoyed on our previous visit because we had not weighed our bread. She is the only person we have met on this trip who is other than pleasant and friendly, although there have been a few drivers that we have annoyed by obeying such rules of the road as adhering to the speed limits

May 24th: 

 

After our three night stay in Trani, we now have a four night stay at the Al Mirador Resort at Laurento di Fasano - a drive of about 150-kilometres via the Castellana Caves and Poligano a Mare. Two features of the route to the caves are the increasing number of trulli and the abundance of fields full of poppies.

The caves are a major tourist attraction but there are few tourists about. English-speaking tours are available for either a short or long tour - we would prefer a long tour as this includes the famous White Cave, but this is not available until 4pm. Instead we take the 1pm tour which comprises a surprisingly large group, although the majority seem to be French or German. After descending some 60-metres by stairs we enter a huge cavern then walk for an hour through a cave with a profusion of stalactites and stalagmites - more than we have ever seen before in the many caves we have visited