Matera to Montesilvano
April 10 – April 16, 2022
After spending a night in San Severo, I had just turned onto the Strada Adriatica. The road is a busy one, but with wide shoulders and an achingly beautiful view down to the sea. I pass a woman sitting in a plastic chair on the side of the road. Odd, I think. There is no obvious access to that spot from a nearby town. Is she waiting for a bus? Then on the opposite side further down, I see another woman by herself, scrolling through her phone. A mile later, yet another woman but she is dancing and singing alongside the road and smiles brightly as I pass by and says “ciao, Bella.”
Then it hits me as I notice an old mattress slightly hidden by the roadside weeds a few yards off the road. I remember the groups of women on the outskirts of a town I had passed through near the train tracks. All of these women were African. All of these women were heavily made up, dressed in high heels and spandex. All of these women are part of the slave trade prevalent in Italy and the rest of Europe.
On my instagram posts, I write of the beautiful views down to the sea as I cycled this road. The blue, blue skies and the downhill ride to the sea is stunning but I cannot shake the jarring images of the dozens of women I see alongside the road forced into prostitution.
Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that is okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully you leave something good behind.
Anthony Bourdain
As I slowly move through the countryside on my bike, I cannot help but notice the ugly along with the beauty. In southern Italy, the contrasts are stark. The piles of garbage strewn about the bucolic olive groves; the immigrant pedaling cheap souvenirs from a cart in a popular resort town; and the women and girls forced into prostitution against the backdrop of the azure Adriatic Sea.
In one town, I wandered into a local shop to stock up on groceries. A lovely woman with a beautiful singsong accent owned the shop and greeted me warmly. We started chatting as she made me a sandwich from her small deli and I browsed the shelves looking for more food to fill my panniers.
Our pleasant chitchat turned to where we each were from. She told me she was from an African nation and had lived in Italy for nearly twenty years. How many of us dream of living in Italy one day? Here was someone I could ask about their experience. I expected to hear how lovely it is to live so close to the sea in such a beautiful land, but instead, she responded without hesitation, “I hate it.”
She told me of fleeing her homeland after her husband died with her two young children. She recounted the long hours of work over the years so she could save her money to buy the shop and better provide for her son and daughter. Angrily, she told me of her son being bullied at university, not by students but by teachers. She spoke of the ostracization by locals as they refuse to acknowledge her on the street or frequent her shop. Immigrants are unfairly characterized as lazy yet she keeps her shop open for longer hours than any other shop in her community.
When I returned to my lodging my host asked where I had lunch. I mentioned that I stopped in the shop around the corner with the charming owner and had a fascinating conversation with her. There was no mistaking the look of disdain on my host’s face as she quickly changed the subject.
It is not lost on me the privilege I have as a white woman from a first-world nation to travel freely while many seek to escape poverty, violence, and racism in their native home and their chosen home. With that privilege comes the responsibility to at the very least give voice to this ugliness so that we may understand our place in the world. These are not country-specific problems, but world problems.
I struggled to write this post. Is it wrong to point out the ugliness? Surely, every country has its dark side. Why highlight it on a travel blog? Travel is meant to open our eyes to the world, good and bad, and to understand the plight of others. If I present only happy stories of the places I visit, is that not only telling half of the story? Acknowledging the dirty little secrets of a community does not detract from the beauty of the place or the goodness of the people, but rather presents a fuller travel experience.
I have many memories from my third week as I traveled from Matera through the Parco Nazionale dell’Alta Murgia and back down to the coast to the port town of Bartletta. I rode through the salt flats and onion fields before heading inland to San Severo. I was settling into the rhythm of my tour and enjoying some of the most beautiful and quiet roads of my Italian trip. I biked along the very windy coast through the fishing town of Termoli and with views of the choppy sea and trabucchi fishing platforms.
But it is the memories of my conversation with the African immigrant woman and of my bike ride passing the African women forced to sell themselves by the side of the road that will leave a mark on my consciousness.
The quiet roads on the way to San Severo
Recommendations
These are my recommendations for lodging. I do not receive any compensation for the recommendations. They are wonderful places I stayed in and I want to pass them on to you.
To Stay
Alfieri Cottage – Ruvo di Puglia – This B&B was north of town in the countryside but only 20 minutes by car from the seashore. Only one other gentleman was staying there but come summertime the B&B must be booked solid. There is a pool and a barbecue area, perfect for families. The breakfast was the best breakfast of my entire trip. Farm fresh eggs, local prosciutto, fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, croissants, and of course plenty of espressos.
To Learn More
‘On The Road’ – a twenty-minute documentary by Piers Sanderson about a similar road not far from where I cycled and known locally as the ‘Road of Love’.
‘Italian dream over, trafficked Nigerian sets sights on home’ by Thin Lei Win, Reuters, 28 February 2019
International Rescue Committee – if you want to learn more and donate money to help the immigration crisis in Italy and beyond.
Routes
Below are the routes I took for the week. You can follow me on Strava or Komoot to get more details.
