This stage is confirmed as the hardest of the Peuceta route thanks to its thirty kilometers of ups and downs. As if that weren’t enough, at some point I lose sight of the waymarks and miss the fork that climbs towards the ruins of Masseria Piedicotta; fortunately this oversight only costs me an extra kilometer of road.

The route itself is however moderately easy, and winds a bit on ridge tops, then inside the forest, then between cultivated fields or freshly plowed, then again on a plateau where two soccer goals are planted in the middle of nowhere.

The Sanctuary of Picciano appears on the horizon when it’s still just a speck, while during the last climb Matera is already visible, which in a straight line seems very close. Having finally reached the top I visit the church and a small photographic exhibition showing various moments of the Sanctuary over the decades.

Although the plaza is deserted and silent, the large parking lot, the large size of the monastery, the presence of a small bar and a small shop of religious items suggest that the place must be quite frequent at times; and indeed suddenly it comes alive with the arrival of a bus from which a group of religious people descend and begin a via cruDinner and overnight stay at a farmcis along the outside of the building.

The monastery guest house has enormous capacity and would be the ideal place to stay, both for location and for the experience itself; unfortunately, however, it is not among the facilities affiliated with the Cammino Materano because it seems that the Benedictine monks who run it are somewhat reluctant to unconditionally accept all hikers requesting hospitality.

Nothing prevents you from contacting the monks and trying anyway, or going directly to alternatives, which do exist but not in the immediate vicinity of the Sanctuary, as there are no populated areas in the surroundings. In particular, a couple of affiliated farms provide a special shuttle service from/to Picciano so as to pick up hikers at the Sanctuary, transport them to the farm for dinner and overnight stay, and take them back to the Sanctuary the next day to resume the Peuceta route where they left off.

I chose this solution, together with three other hikers I get on the van that comes to pick us up and in a quarter of an hour we reach the Santa Maria farm. It is a beautiful agricultural estate nestled halfway up the tranquility of a hill from which you can enjoy a vast panorama of the crops, the hill of the Sanctuary of Picciano and, even further in the distance, Matera. The rooms are spacious, carefully maintained, and with all amenities.

Francesco and his wife, two distinguished and very educated gentlemen, prepare a good and abundant dinner for us; the same for breakfast, from which we will draw all the energy to tackle the last stage of the Peuceta route.