Wed 13^th – Sat 16^th May

Accommodation: SASSIDreaming booked on AirBnB.

Apologies in advance: but there is a lot of text in this blog update as there is just so much history here in Matera. It is more for my records so just skip to the photos.

Wed 13^th

Our accommodation for the next three nights was an apartment set into one of the ancient caves of the Matera Sassi. The Sassi of Matera is a UNESCO heritage area of cave dwellings carved into the soft limestone that has been a place of settlement for over 9,000 years making it one the longest, continuous settlements in the world. Our apartment was set into the side of the Sassi, near to the Duomo, in a pedestrian-only zone so we left most of our luggage in the car and just brought a few small bags with us for the next 3 days. It was a most unique experience staying in this cave-like apartment and not as dark as I had initially feared. The kitchen and bedroom both had double doors opening onto balconies with views over the Sassi and there was a large light-well in the middle of the apartment casting some natural light into the lounge area.

We had been lucky with the weather up until now but had a bit of rain on the 3.5 hr drive across from Sorrento and, then, a short thunderstorm downpour struck just after we got into the apartment. The rain cleared briefly and we were lulled into thinking it would be safe to head out but it started to pour again once we got about 100m from the apartment. I headed back as my shoes were quickly soaked but Mark persisted only to arrive back shortly later almost fully drenched and we resigned ourselves to spending the next couple of hours waiting / hoping for the rain to stop. Apart from being wet, neither of us had brought sufficiently warm clothing but luckily we got the room heaters to work and they warmed the apartment up quite quickly.

Dinner tonight was at Le Bubbole which, luckily, was only a 2’ walk from our apartment but, sadly, was at 7.30 pm. However, this wait allowed time for the worst of the rain to pass and it had cleared up by the time for our short walk to dinner. I hadn’t realised when I booked Le Bubbole, all those weeks ago, that it was a Michelin restaurant located within the luxury hotel, Palazzo Gattini, the one made famous in the James Bond movie, No Time To Die, and had put Matera on the map for many tourists. We stopped off along the way to check out the roof top bar of the luxury hotel but the rain meant the place was virtually empty. We also spied into some of the rooms being cleaned and noted they appeared quite small and dark which made us appreciate our lodging all the more, and we were located almost right next door anyway! We weren’t really suitably dressed for such a fine dining affair but, then, neither was one of the other guests! There was a large group of elderly (and very loud) Americans who arrived just after us and one old wrinkly guy was wearing a confederate flag t-shirt! Mark and I ended up being the only other patrons seated in a small room off to the side of the large group of Americans but, despite the strange setting, the meal was a lovely, the service was great and we only had a 2 minute walk home.

Thurs 14^th 

It was with great joy that we woke to find the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The rain yesterday had turned the streets into rivers and we didn’t want a repeat of that! Our first activity of the day was a 2 hour walking tour booked for 10.30 am.

Our guide for the tour was a young lady, Grace, who originated from Bari. She led our group around the Sassi and pointed out items of interest but didn’t provide a coherent historical narrative sufficient enough to enable us to get a good understanding of the history of the area and that was very disappointing. I did pick up a few bits of information though but this was mostly from online searching once we got back home:

• The Sassi of Matera is mad up of a hilltop, where the Cathedral is located and then the two sides of this hill: the Sasso Barisano facing east and the Sasso Caveoso facing south. Our apartment was in Sasso Barisano.
• Sasso Barisano: is the larger of the two and has seen more restoration, now containing many shops, restaurants, and hotels.
• Sasso Caveoso: this district maintains a more authentic, untouched appearance, offering a stronger sense of how the caves were originally inhabited.
• Matera has been inhabited since the Neolithic period (approximately 7,000 BC) with people residing in natural caves, and then man-made caves.
• The caves were easily excavated as the stone was fairly soft, like Tuff, but more sandy.
• Monks fled to Matera in the 7th & 8th centuries to flee persecution hence the large number of churches: around 200.
• Matera is full of ‘Rupestrian churches’: which means churches carved out of rock rather than being built up from stone. They sometimes refer to this process as ‘negative architecture’.
• Cave houses remained fairly primitive; with no running water, sewage or power and were in use until author Carlo Levi published a 1945 memoir about his year living in Matera that highlighted the dire plight of residents. This publication caused an uproar and the Italian PM visited in 1952, with politicians famously describing the area as ‘the stain of Italy’. The PM ultimately forced residents to vacate the caves for newly developed accommodation in surrounding areas.
• The Cave houses were left abandoned  until the 1980s. Today, approximately 40% are still abandoned.
• The UNESCO listing of Matera in 1993 brought renewed interest to the area. The listing was awarded due to complex but effective water collection and storage system and cisterns.
• It was really only after some famous movies though, such as the 2004 Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ and then the 2014 Bond movie No Time to Die that Matera really became popular with tourists and regeneration of the Sassi progressed with the development of hotels and B&Bs.

Fri 15^th

It was a glorious morning for our last full day in Matera and we spent the early part out and about visiting some more sites and the the afternoon was spent back at the apartment where I did some life admin tasks (like washing) whilst Mark watched the AFL game of Swans vs Collingwood.

We covered an awful lot of ground before lunchtime with visits to another cave house,  C’era Una Volta cave house: which I think if you only had time to visit one cave house then this is the best one as there is a narrated audio guide to give you a fuller appreciation of the experience. Right next door was the Museo Laboratorio della Civiltà Contadina which was rather interesting but not something I would say needs to be on a Matera ‘to do’ list. After that we went on to visit three different Rupestrian churches, remember they’re the ones carved out of soft rock limestone, and all three are definitely worth adding to your Matera ‘to do’ list, in my opinion that is, because of their unique structure and appearance and because of their beautiful frescoes. The first rock church was Chiesa Rupestrian di Madonna Della Virtu (1000 AD) located low down in Sassi Barisano and the second was the dual Rupestrian complex of the rock church, Santa Maria de Idris and the crypt of San Giovanni in Monterone that were connected to each other by an internal passageway and these were located high up in Sasso Caveoso. The third and final rock church was the Santa Lucia alle Malve also located in Sasso Caveoso. A word of warning here though. Google maps often struggles to work out your location when your deep in the Sassi so directions can be quite fraught so patience and perseverance is definitely needed. All of these visits were achieved before 12;30pm but not before we’d covered almost 5 km of walking and traipsed up and down many, many stairs. You definitely get a good workout when visiting Matera.

Lunch today was back at L’Antica Credenza for the third time running where we both again enjoyed the soup. The afternoon went better than I’d hoped for as the Swans came back, from a decent deficit, to with the AFL match so Mark turned into a happy camper. The only time we ventured out again for the day was to have aperitivo down in the square and after that it was back home for a night of dining in. We had the most wonderful evening of dining in simple but nutritious fare whilst sitting on the balcony enjoying the magnificent view across the sassi. Tomorrow we head across to the Termoli on the Adriatic coast.

We’d enjoyed our time in Matera and two days is definitely enough time to see all the main sights; you could even get away with one full day and just cherry picking a few attractions but this would be quite rushed. Our accommodation was very comfortable and well located for exploring the Sassi and a good option if you’re wanting a ‘cave house’ type apartment experience. However, there are many hotel options within the Sassi but they will generally be much more expensive. We would strongly suggest you visit in early May to early June, any earlier would be too cold and any later would be too busy and too hot.