Farm Holiday Hermit's Cave — Local services in Castelmezzano

. We drove on to the reserved Agriturismo in the middle of the mountains. From the Strada Statale, a small stretch of provincial road, then a side road from that, a side road from that, increasingly narrower, more winding and more sandy, until we have to enter a dead-end dirt road according to Mr. Google. After 500 meters we arrive at a messy farm set. There is no one there, and after some searching we see a gloomy man who calls out to us from the back of a dark room with set tables that he will be there in 5 minutes because he is eating. OK… , we will wait a while. After 10 minutes, Mr. Gloomy appears and says from behind a rickety wooden bar: “documenti”. No, Marja’s passport too! He puts it in a kind of pigeonhole behind him, openly visible to everyone at a distance of 50 cm. We say that it is not very safe, he smoothly shifts from gloomy to grumpy within 0.1 second, and grumblingly takes pictures of our passports. The tone is now… let’s call it business like. The day is getting more interesting by the second. We are taken to an outbuilding, where a cleaning lady submissively cowers, avoiding eye contact. Our room has a door that only stays closed if you lock it with one of those old-fashioned keys, because the door handle is half-sunk somewhere in the wood rot, still trying to represent something. The room is warm and old, the bed is crooked in its construction, towels from 1937 are on the bed: we are getting despondent. I check for B&Bs in the area, there is actually reception here in this Middle of Nowhere, and we find one. It looks beautiful and modern and clean. This dump has already been paid for and we don’t give a damn. It’s clever to cause so much annoyance among your guests within 30 minutes. And so: we make the day even more interesting and decide to leave. Marja returns the key to an old guy who says she has to wait for Il Directore. But he...

For a relaxing weekend we, me and my spouse, were looking for a calm and authentic place surrounded by woods and charming yet not overcrouded spots and towns to visit, and that's basically what we got. Grotta dell'eremita is a small village in the lucanian country and a family farm where the familiar side is maybe a lil prevalent on the need of being good hosts, when you have guests that are not your family. I mean, feeling home is important when you travel, but when you got the feeling that you are in someone else's home, that can be disappointing. I'd say that taking much care of the common spaces surrounding the rooms would not be a bad idea, to avoid a general impression of sloppiness that you could feel around you (an old and rusty tractor just beside one of the access to the rooms area, cars parked everywhere, people screaming at debatable volumes and times talking of daily business problems just down your balcony). With a few attention to details, this place, without changing its autenticity, could really become a sort of lost bucolic paradise, qnd it's a pity not to have had the chance to live it at its highest potential. For the rest, the family and workers were warm and always available and dinners were good yet simple. Just a final remark: what I espect in an agriturismo is a taste of autenticy even in food, and was disappointing to have a tradtional antipasto, where the most of the products served were basically products that you would find in any Italian supermarket. More attention to details, would represent an actual improvement, that would eventually justify the fact that, at the end of the sotry, the staying in a place which is far from everything in the heart of a non-turistic place, though not costly, could not even be...

Where do I start... We were travelling through Southern Italy and decided to try a farm stay for a few days. Booking.com directed me to Grotto dell' Eremita, and the website looked okay so I booked 2 nights. Driving into the place it was showing signs of rustic decay but being late October and a dull day I remained hopeful that it would be a better experience than it looks. Check in was somewhat clumsy but we did get shown to our room, informed of the restaurant times, and left to settle in. That was when I started to worry. There are plenty of reviews on here warning about the accommodation and the restaurant, and I should have checked the latest reviews before booking. By now was late afternoon and I apologised to my wife and made plans to move somewhere else the next day. We headed to dinner at 8pm (earliest) in the quaint dining room and over the next 2 hours I was slowly charmed by the Grotto dell' Eremita experience. The food and the service were good enough to enjoy it. The setting is of a time long gone by. With a warmth and a comfort that comes from not new and shiny, but weathered and well worn. Everywhere you look are signs of previous prosperity. But I doubt that this place will still be operating in 10 years time. The owners/operators seem tired, a bit like the property. And that is a pity. There is an authentic charm beneath the ageing facilities. So no, we didn't move out the next day, we stayed on and immersed ourselves in the countryside and what could have been, but wasn't, a Fawlty...