Matera: what to see, where to stay and how to get around
People have lived in the caves of this ravine for something like nine thousand years, and they were still living in them in 1950 — families and animals in one room, no water, no drains, malaria and a child mortality that shocked Italy when the writer Carlo Levi described it. The prime minister called the Sassi a national shame, and in the 1950s about fifteen thousand people were moved out to new housing. The caves stood empty for thirty years; today they are hotels. Two hours on foot, many steps, and the light is best at the end of the day.
A short history of Matera
People have lived in the caves of Matera, the Sassi, since the Palaeolithic period, and it is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. In 1945 the writer Carlo Levi described in his book Christ Stopped at Eboli the poverty of the caves, where families lived together with their animals. In 1952 a law was passed that moved the inhabitants of the Sassi, about 15,000 people, to new neighbourhoods. The caves stood empty for years, until in 1993 they were declared a World Heritage Site and slowly came back to life. In 2019 Matera was the European Capital of Culture.
The ten best sights in Matera
1Sasso CaveosoThe older cave quarter, facing the ravine; go at the end of the day
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2Sasso Barisano
The northern cave quarter, more rebuilt, with the hotels in the caves
3Matera CathedralRomanesque, 1270, on the ridge between the two Sassi
4Santa Maria de IdrisA church cut into the rock on top of a crag in the middle of the Sasso
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5San Pietro Barisano
The largest rock church, with the niches where the dead were dried
6Madonna delle VirtùTwo rock churches stacked one above the other, open as a single visit
7Santa Lucia alle MalveThe first Benedictine convent in the rock, with a nursing Madonna
8Casa Grotta di Vico SolitarioA cave house furnished as a family lived in it in the 1950s, mule included
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9Palombaro Lungo
A cistern fifteen metres deep under the main square; boats once crossed it
10Piazza Vittorio VenetoThe square of the upper town, and the balcony over Sasso Barisano
Scan with your phone camera to open the map there
What is an audio walk?
Tours in Matera →A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Matera:
Free walking tours in Matera
The national shame
People have lived in the caves of this ravine for something like nine thousand years, and they were still living in them in 1950 — families and animals in one room, no water, no drains, malaria and a child mortality that shocked Italy when the writer Carlo Levi described it. The prime minister called the Sassi a national shame, and in the 1950s about fifteen thousand people were moved out to new housing. The caves stood empty for thirty years; today they are hotels. Two hours on foot, many steps, and the light is best at the end of the day.
- Piazza Vittorio Veneto · The square of the upper town, built on flat ground at the top of the ravine. From the balcony at its edge you look straight down into Sasso Barisano, and the change of level is the whole story: the gentry lived up here, the peasants down there in the rock.
- Palombaro Lungo · Under the square is a cistern about fifteen metres deep, cut in the rock and lined against leaks, which collected the rain for the town. It was sealed when piped water arrived and was rediscovered only in 1991. Water was the problem of every cave in the Sassi, and this is how it was solved for the town above.
- Matera Cathedral · Finished in 1270 on the ridge that divides the two Sassi, and dedicated to the Madonna della Bruna. On the second of July her statue is carried through the town on a papier-mâché float, and at the end of the procession the crowd tears the float to pieces and takes the fragments home.
- Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario · A cave house set up exactly as it was lived in before the evacuation: one room cut into the rock, the bed raised high, the children sleeping in a drawer, the mule and the hens in the back, and a cistern under the floor. A family of eight or ten lived like this into the 1950s.
- Santa Maria de Idris · A church cut into the top of a crag in the middle of Sasso Caveoso, with medieval frescoes inside. The whole ravine is full of churches like this — more than a hundred and fifty of them, made by monks and hermits who came from the eastern Mediterranean from the eighth century on.
- Belvedere Murgia Timone · The view of the whole town from the opposite side of the ravine, reached by a path down and across the river or by road. It is the landscape that stood in for Jerusalem in Pasolini’s Gospel According to St Matthew in 1964 and in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ in 2004.
The churches in the rock
Matera’s rock churches look like caves from outside and like Byzantine chapels inside — domes, columns, iconostases and saints, all carved out of a single mass of stone rather than built. This route visits the best of them in the two Sassi, and ends at a crypt out of town that has been called the Sistine Chapel of rock painting. Half a day, and the crypt must be booked.
- San Pietro Barisano · The largest rock church in the Sassi. Under the floor are the niches where the dead priests were set upright to drain and dry before burial, and the frescoes on the walls were painted over each other for five hundred years.
- Madonna delle Virtù · Two churches stacked one on the other: the Madonna delle Virtù below, cut as a three-aisled church with a dome, and San Nicola dei Greci above, a chapel of Greek-rite monks. The whole complex is carved downward into the rock of the ravine edge.
- MUSMA · A museum of modern sculpture whose galleries are caves under a seventeenth-century palazzo. Bronze and steel standing in rooms that were once cisterns and stables is the best way to see how deep the rock under the town goes.
- Santa Lucia alle Malve · Probably the first Benedictine convent of women in the rock, from the eighth century. Among the frescoes is a Madonna nursing her child, painted in 1250, and after the nuns left the church was used as a house.
- San Pietro Caveoso · The one built church at the bottom of Sasso Caveoso, standing on the very edge of the ravine. The square in front of it is where the evening ends — the floodlit caves above, the drop below.
- Crypt of Original Sin · A cave chapel in a ravine outside town, found by a group of local young men in 1963. Its walls carry frescoes of the late eighth or ninth century: the creation of light and darkness, Adam and Eve, and the serpent in the tree. It has to be booked, and the visit is short and by small group.
Bread, castles and a ghost town
Around Matera are towns that tell the rest of the south’s story: a castle where barons plotted against their king, a town that bakes the most famous bread in Italy, a Neanderthal fused into the rock of a cave, and a hilltop village abandoned after a landslide. A full day and a car; the roads are empty.
- Castello Tramontano · Count Giancarlo Tramontano began this castle in 1501 to hold down the town, and paid for it with taxes the town hated. On the twenty-ninth of December 1514 the townspeople killed him in the street. The castle was never finished, and three towers stand over the town as he left them.
- Castello del Malconsiglio · The castle of bad advice: in 1485 the barons of the kingdom of Naples met here to plot against King Ferdinand. He invited them to a wedding feast in Naples afterwards, had them arrested, and most of them were executed. The castle kept the name.
- Altamura · The bread of Altamura was the first bread in Europe to receive a protected designation of origin, in 2003 — durum wheat, long-proofed, a thick crust. The old custom was that each family marked its dough with a wooden stamp before taking it to the communal oven, so the loaves came back to the right house.
- Lamalunga Cave · In 1993 cavers found the skeleton of a Neanderthal man in a narrow passage of this cave, covered by limestone formations that had grown over him for more than a hundred thousand years. He was never removed, because removing him would destroy him; visitors see him on a video link from a centre nearby.
- Gravina Bridge · Gravina is another town on the lip of a ravine, and its arched bridge-aqueduct across the gorge carried water to the town. In 2021 it was the bridge James Bond jumps from in No Time to Die, which was filmed between here and Matera.
- Craco · A medieval village on a crest of clay, and the clay moved. A landslide that began in 1963 forced the people out over the following years, and the village was left as it stood — houses, churches and a tower on the ridge, empty. It is visited only with a guide and a helmet, and it has been a film set many times since.
Getting to Matera and getting around
- Bari Airport · About an hour by car; the shuttle bus runs to Matera several times a day
- Matera Centrale · The small Appulo-Lucane line from Bari; Matera has no main-line station
Cheap eats in Matera
This is peasant food that became fashionable. The bread is the centre of it — the horn-shaped loaf of Matera and the round loaf of Altamura next door — and the other thing to try is peperoni cruschi, sweet red peppers dried on strings and then flashed in hot oil until they shatter. At the counter it is focaccia and a panzerotto, fried and filled with tomato and mozzarella, a couple of euro each.
- Altamura · Bread by weight from the wood ovens, in the morning
- Piazza Vittorio Veneto · Focaccia and panzerotti from the bakeries round the square
- Sasso Barisano · Peperoni cruschi at the cave tavernas, a few euro
- Sasso Caveoso · Wine bars in the caves, and a plate of cheese and bread
- Bernalda · The main street of the town the Coppolas left; tables outside
- Gravina in Puglia · Butchers that grill to order, the Puglia way
Museums in Matera
Matera’s museums are mostly underground — in caves, cisterns and churches cut into the rock. The one above ground worth the most time is Palazzo Lanfranchi, for a single painting about the south that explains why the Sassi were emptied.
- Palazzo Lanfranchi · Carlo Levi’s Lucania 61, eighteen metres long
- Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario · A cave home as it was before the evacuation
- Palombaro Lungo · The great cistern under the square; timed entries
- MUSMA · Sculpture in caves under a palazzo
- Museo Ridola · The prehistoric villages of the Murgia
- Lamalunga Cave · The Altamura Man, seen by video from the visitor centre
Nature and day trips near Matera
The town sits on one side of the Gravina, a canyon cut by a small river through limestone, and the other side is the Murgia park — a bare plateau of grass and rock full of caves, churches and shepherds’ folds. Further west, the Lucanian Dolomites rise in jagged peaks with villages built into them.
- Belvedere Murgia Timone · The view of the town; walk across the ravine or drive
- Jazzo Gattini · Park visitor centre and the trails across the plateau
- Pietrapertosa · A village carved into jagged rock, an hour west
- Castelmezzano · The zip line between two villages; book a slot
- Craco · The ghost village on its clay ridge
- Gravina Bridge · The bridge over the gorge, and the walk below it
Things to do in Matera with kids
A town of caves is a game in itself, and children like the cave house with its mule and the cistern under the square. The steps are hard on small legs; carry, or keep to the lower paths. The Flight of the Angel is for older children and up.
- Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario · The family cave with the mule and the hens
- Palombaro Lungo · Walkways inside a giant underground tank
- Castello Tramontano · Towers and a park around them
- Belvedere Murgia Timone · Caves to climb into on the plateau
- Castelmezzano · The zip line, for older children
- Tavole Palatine, Metaponto · A Greek temple in a field, then the beach nearby
Holy places in Matera
More than a hundred and fifty churches were cut into the rock of the ravine and the plateau opposite, by monks who followed both the Greek and the Latin rite. Some are chapels the size of a room, some have domes and columns carved out of the stone, and the oldest paintings go back twelve hundred years.
- Crypt of Original Sin · Eighth-century frescoes of Genesis; book ahead
- Madonna delle Virtù · Two rock churches one above the other
- Santa Maria de Idris · A church cut into the top of a crag
- San Pietro Barisano · The draining niches of the dead under the floor
- Matera Cathedral · The Bruna festival, the second of July
- Santa Lucia alle Malve · A nursing Madonna of 1250
Nightlife in Matera
Matera at night is the lit Sassi seen from above, and that is most of the evening. There are wine bars in the caves and a passeggiata along the main streets of the upper town; anything louder means Bari, an hour away.
- Piazza Vittorio Veneto · The passeggiata, and the lit Sassi from the balcony
- Sasso Barisano · Wine bars cut into the rock
- San Pietro Caveoso · The square on the edge of the ravine at night
- Belvedere Murgia Timone · The whole lit town from across the ravine
- Matera Cathedral · The ridge-top square, quiet and lit
Frequently asked questions about Matera
What is there to see in Matera?
The top sights in Matera are Sasso Caveoso, Sasso Barisano and Matera Cathedral. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.
How many days do you need in Matera?
Three to four days are enough to see the best of Matera without rushing, including at least one walking tour.
Is there a free walking tour in Matera?
Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Matera, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The national shame.
How do you get to Matera and get around?
The main ways are Bari Airport and Matera Centrale. Full details are in the transport section on this page.
Where to stay in Matera, and for how much?
sleepntrip shows only rooms in Matera that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.
Looking for a hotel in Matera for your dates?
Only rooms that meet nine conditions, up to $80 a night.