Casa 3Bien is a charming, independent mini-suite located in the Sassi, 50 meters from Casa Cava and the beautiful little Piazza San Giovanni, which is overlooked by the medieval Church of San Giovanni Battista and the former San Rocco Hospital. From here, walking along Via San Biagio, you’ll immediately reach Piazza Vittorio Veneto, the city’s main square. Just a short distance from the house are the Damasco parking lot in Recinto XX Settembre and the parking lot in Piazza Cesare Firrao. The house, which overlooks the Fondazione Sassi, consists of a kitchenette, a sitting area, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Each room has a beautiful window through which the sun streams in—sometimes revealing the magic of the Sassi, sometimes the cathedral’s bell tower, and sometimes the deep ridges of the Murgia. The shower is spacious so you don’t have to stand at attention while washing, and the bed is spacious too so you don’t have to hug each other just to sleep. The furnishings are simple and functional. Just a touch of understated modernity among the chairs, the wardrobe, and the old-fashioned sideboard—all made of wood, which still creak and groan—and the horizontal chestnut staircase, with its rungs taking a rare rest,
beneath the tuff stones embedded in the barrel vault, all of which pleasantly transport you back in time. There’s no television: so, especially in the evening, the house fills with stillness and silence—the very thing we all lack these days to truly reconnect with ourselves. A silence that, at the turn of the century, was broken by the crying and cheerful shouts of the nine children and the braying of Martina the donkey, whose manger stood where the bathroom is now, back when the house was inhabited by Angelo Domenico, a tireless farmer with a long black mustache that was tugged in turn by eighteen curious little hands, and by his wife Angelina, who, despite having so much to do, was always humming to herself—even addressing Martina in the evenings when she returned tired from the fields and, now free of her pack, stood on her own savoring her fodder. Her husband was thoughtful, the children were growing up healthy, and there was never a shortage of bread and soup on the table set near the hearth; the land was bountiful with olives and wheat, and Martina had the strength of a mule; and for this reason, whenever anyone asked Angelina how things were going, she would always reply, smiling and adjusting her bun: “We’re doing well, very well…”