Matera: a city that left its caves and came back

Matera, in the Basilicata region of southern Italy, is built on and into a ravine. The Sassi, its old districts, are dwellings and churches cut out of soft local rock, which UNESCO inscribed in December 1993 together with the park of the rupestrian, or rock-cut, churches around the city. People have lived in this area for a very long time; the Romans founded the town in 251 BC as Matheola.

In the twentieth century, the Sassi were judged unfit for habitation. Between 1952 and the 1970s the government moved residents to new housing on the plateau, and the old districts emptied. Restoration under a 1986 law began their return, and in 2019 Matera was a European Capital of Culture. For visitors the result is an unusual place to stay: some rooms and restaurants now occupy former cave houses.

Walk early, when the stone is pale and the lanes are quiet. The cathedral dates from the thirteenth century, and several rock-cut churches in and near the Sassi have preserved painted interiors. The local bread, Pane di Matera, carries an EU Protected Geographical Indication, and is worth buying from a local baker.

Matera is easy to reach but not quite on the main lines. The nearest airport is Bari, and the town is the terminus of the Bari–Matera narrow-gauge railway run by Ferrovie Appulo Lucane. Allow two to three days, and pair it with a day in the countryside or on the Apulian coast.

A note on respect: people live in the Sassi today. Keep to public lanes, ask before photographing doorways or interiors, and remember that a city restored for visitors still has residents.