People have lived in the Sassi for nine thousand years, making Matera one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Yet in 1952 a law emptied them as a "national disgrace": fifteen thousand people relocated, cave homes bricked up. History then reversed itself — first UNESCO site in southern Italy in 1993, European Capital of Culture 2019 — and those same caves are now hotels, rock churches and viewpoints that filmmakers fight over.
What to see
The two stone amphitheatres of Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso, split by the Civita spur and its cathedral; the rock churches of Santa Maria de Idris and San Pietro Barisano; the Casa Grotta of Vico Solitario, furnished as it was before the evacuation, which explains everything better than any book. Across the ravine, the Murgia Timone belvedere — the crucifixion viewpoint of Gibson's Passion and of No Time to Die.
Visiting
The Sassi are walked, endlessly up and down on smooth paving: serious shoes, not stylish ones. A full day is the minimum; rock churches take single or combined tickets. Evening changes everything — warm lights turn the two districts into an inhabited nativity scene.
Getting there
By train on the Ferrovie Appulo Lucane from Bari Centrale (about an hour and a half); by car, park at the rim of the upper town, then feet only. Matera Centrale station is ten minutes from the first overlook.
Our editors' tip
Sleep in a cave at least one night: waking inside the tuff, light entering through a single arch, is how the Sassi are understood from within. And walk across the ravine to Murgia Timone at sunset: from there, all of Matera lights up before you.