Matera is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world — the cave dwellings of the Sassi were occupied from the Palaeolithic period and remained inhabited, in various forms, until the forced evacuations of the 1950s. The UNESCO designation in 1993 and the designation as European Capital of Culture in 2019 have changed the city's self-understanding without entirely changing the city itself. The Sassi are extraordinary — not as ruins but as a lived urban fabric that happens to be carved from rock. The rupestrian churches cut directly into the tuff stone contain Byzantine frescoes; the cave hotels are not a novelty but a logical continuation of the buildings' original purpose. The city sits on the edge of the Murgia plateau above a ravine, and the light on the tuff in the early morning and late afternoon is unlike anything in Italy.
The Sassi, the tuff stone, and nine thousand years of continuous inhabitation.
The architecture is the geology. The Sassi — Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano — are the two great cave districts carved from golden tuff stone descending from the Piano into the Gravina ravine. The rupestrian churches are architecture in the most fundamental sense: space removed from rock rather than assembled from components. The Cattedrale della Madonna della Bruna on the Piano di Matera is the civic counterpoint — a 13th-century Apulian Romanesque structure with a gilded Baroque interior. Casa Noha, the FAI-managed medieval house, tells the Sassi's modern history through projected imagery.
Matera rewards early mornings before the day-trip arrivals from Naples and Bari. The evening, once the tour groups have departed, returns the Sassi to something close to silence. The cave hotels enforce their own unhurried tempo. The best Matera is experienced at dawn, or after 8pm.
Spring and autumn are the ideal seasons — the tuff stone takes the light at oblique angles and the temperature is manageable. The summer heat in the ravine is significant. In winter, Matera has an almost complete quiet and the stone interiors maintain a steady cool temperature.
Sasso Caveoso: The larger and better-preserved of the two Sassi districts — the cave dwellings descend in tiers toward the Gravina ravine. The rupestrian churches of Santa Maria de Idris and the Madonna delle Virtù complex are here.
Sasso Barisano: The upper Sassi district facing northwest, with a more mixed character of cave dwellings, renovated cave hotels, and restaurants carved from the rock.
Piano di Matera: The upper town on the plateau — the Cattedrale, the Piazza Vittorio Veneto, and the modern city that developed after the Sassi evacuations. The overlook points on the Piano give the most complete view of the Sassi below.