Thanks to the ease of the route and the absence of significant elevation changes I cover the 20 km of this stage in just four hours including a short stop in Casalia, a farmhouse that you encounter just over an hour from the start.

Altamura continues to be visible in the distance as I approach Gravina among huge expanses of wheat
interspersed with some large photovoltaic parks.

Upon entering the town I stop to visit the Church of San Sebastiano and the adjacent cloister where a painting exhibition has just been inaugurated. There is great excitement in the area and the whole Via San Sebastiano, which leads to the center and towards the hostel, is decorated and full of stalls because the town is preparing for the Feast of the Holy Cross, an event linked above all to the agricultural world, of good omen for the imminent wheat harvest.

the fact that the stage is not tiring allows me to still have enough energy to be able to dedicate myself to the visit of Gravina, starting from the historic center where – thanks to the religious festival – the outdoor seating of bars, restaurants and trattorias are lively crowded with locals and tourists.

Among the activities you can dedicate yourself to as a tourist in Gravina in Puglia, the first in order of time and preference is a tour in the “underground Gravina” organized by the homonymous association. Entering a sort of warehouse overlooking the street you go down into the underground until you access enormous underground rooms of which the city is full, dug centuries ago to extract the material with which to build the buildings on the surface; once used as warehouses or cisterns, they were abandoned for very long periods and then rediscovered. Some have finally been opened and made visitable in recent years by volunteers of the association, by whom I let myself be accompanied for about an hour and a half in a pleasant tour under various palaces of the historic center while they passionately tell me its fascinating history.

Then, you can’t help but cross the viaduct/aqueduct that connects the settlement to the opposite side of the ravine and on which a famous scene from James Bond “No time to die” was shot. Beyond the bridge there are rupestral churches whose guided tour is economical but also very fast and superficial; it is however pleasant to enjoy the panorama of the ravine – and of Gravina – also from this other angle.

To enjoy the sunset nothing better than a bottle of fresh Verdeca, a sweet and fruity IGP wine, which together with another pilgrim taste near the Medieval Bastion overlooking the canyon. For dinner we opt for the pilgrim menu at the Osteria 1881 and it proves to be a good choice while the overnight stay is at the Tana della Volpe, a nice B&B a few meters from the center with a single dormitory with six beds.

Upon waking, my roommate pilgrim and I both decide that we cannot leave the city without having tried “U rucci of San Giuseppe” and so we start a search that will lead us to have to reach, rather stubbornly, an out-of-the-way oven in order to succeed in our endeavor.

Finally, when I leave Gravina I already have a couple of kilometers in my legs and in my backpack a nice slice of this brick (ehm, delicacy) halfway between a calzone and a focaccia: wheat dough and oil rolled filled with onions, raisins and anchovies.