Having revisited Matera this month, I feel compelled to write again about Italy’s oldest city that takes my breath away . . . every single time. No small statement, as I have been coming here every year since 2014.

For any adventurous traveller, there are places in the world that need to be experienced. Matera ranks high on the list.

The oldest period in human history is called the “Palaeolithic period” which refers to the early part of the Stone Age, a time when woolly mammoths roamed the earth and the last Ice Age was just winding down. Incredibly, this is when people first settled in Matera. We’re talking around 15,000 B.C.

What makes Matera different is that man never left. Instead, they dug in - quite literally. In the Iron and Bronze Ages, newly equipped with metal tools, settlers dug underground caverns, cisterns and tombs in the landscape’s soft volcanic stone called tufa. They also dug dwellings.

The sassi literally means stones and refers to the two neighbourhoods of stone dwellings in the ancient town - Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano.

Less than seventy years ago, around 30,000 people were still living in caves that housed families with an average of six children. They slept amongst the mule, pig and chickens, which were kept under the bed. Malaria, cholera and typhoid were rampart and people were dying of starvation. Mortality rate was 50%.

The extent of the squalid conditions and poverty in the sassi only came to the attention of the Italian government because Carlo Levi, a journalist from Rome, was exiled by Mussolini for his political activism to a town called Eboli in the region of Basilicata in 1935. He wrote a book called ‘Christ stopped at Eboli’, which was published in 1945. Carlo Levi described the horror he witnessed. He was like the Bob Geldof of his time. The book was essentially saying “Italy, shame on you. Shame on you for letting Basilicata become so poor and unhygienic. Shame on you for not taking better care of your citizens.”

There was no running water; no sanitation; people lived with their livestock in abject poverty and caves were damp and derelict.

In 1950 the Prime Minister visited Matera and described it as “a national disgrace”. This set in motion a chain of events that led to the first evacuation of 15,000 people in 1952 to newly built homes in the outer areas of the sassi. In the 1960s a new Bill determined that the sassi be completely evacuated and abandoned. Most people were happy to leave.

It was Carlo Levi who opposed that the sassi be allowed to slip into oblivion and deterioration. The area had to be preserved and protected for its historical and social value. In 1986 a new law was passed to move people back to the sassi. In a complete turnaround from the fifties, the government encouraged the sassi’s revival by subsiding restoration work. Artisans moved in to establish workshops; bars and restaurants opened; boutique hotels and B&Bs opened - all in renovated cave dwellings.

The ancient town became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993. Contrary to belief, it was not for the city’s history or architecture. Matera had no water source, so an ingenious system of rainwater channels and cisterns was excavated beneath homes. It was these channels and cisterns that earnt Matera inclusion on the World Heritage List.

In 2004 Mel Gibson filmed The Passion of the Christ.

In 2014 Matera came first out of 1500 entries to win European Capital of Culture for 2019. Imagine the joy!

This is a dramatic story of rebirth from “the national disgrace of Italy” to “the pride of Italy” in a relatively short period of time. Matera is a national treasure and no longer the dirty secret of Italy.

Ancient Matera sits on the edge of a deep ravine several kilometres long with a stream flowing through it. The whole area is part of the protected Parco della Murgia Materana. A 3.5 kilometre return walk takes you down into the ravine, across a very cool suspension bridge and up the other side to caves once inhabited 10,000 years ago.

Today ancient Matera is alive and lively. We stay in beautifully renovated caves with every modern convenience, yet the illusion of sleeping in a cave. The best way to explore the sassi is on foot as you navigate your way up and down ueven stairways and along lanes that zigzag past a tangle of stone houses stacked nine layers high. One person’s floor is another person’s roof. As you wander aimlessly, you can’t help but feel an emotion and a sense of awe as you pass abandoned streets, caves and tiny courtyards where children once played.

In 1952, Carlo Levi wrote:

“Anyone who sees Matera cannot help but be awestruck, so expressive and touching is its sorrowful beauty.”

Join me in the first two weeks of May 2026. Spring is an amazing time to explore Matera and the Amalfi Coast. There are still spots available!

Ci vediamo la prossima settimana.

Deb