There is a small corner in southern Italy that has recently come out of the shadows. Recently degraded as “Italy’s shame” 50 years ago, Massera, the ancient renovated capital of the Basilicata, with its magnificent rocky caves and its Troglodyte habitat, won the European Capital of Culture Award for 2019 and now appears in the new Bond epic No Time to Die.
Why visit Sassi di Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
No doubt, Matera is very easy on the eyes. Imagine a solidly woven mountain rock-dwelling, so compact that sometimes one sits on top of the other. Its ancient style reveals a kind of mysterious majesty with a mixture of cave churches carved in the mountains and ornate grand churches in the old town. It could easily sit in the pages of a Dan Brown thriller blockbuster.
For the best part of 9000 years, no one can help with all the running and strange characters hiding in the ancient cave dwellings of Sasi di Matera (Matera Stone). Indeed, the Bronze Age evidence of human existence in the area makes it one of the oldest populated cities in the world.
Yet even long ago, living conditions were so bad that the roads of the two Sassi (meaning “stones”) in Barisano and Cavoso districts turned into careless sewers. Houses were often poorly ventilated with 90% humidity and on top of that farmers lived in small spaces with their animals (horses, sheep). None of this was helped by population, disease, and poverty.
The council was so terrified that they evacuated 20,000 residents and relocated them to a dubbed square two-story house called Casa Mussolini with modern amenities in the city square. The mothers were now ripe for reform and nicely rubbed, so much so that it won the European Capital Culture Award for 2019.
Now bathed in the warmth of the limelight, the city is becoming the next spectacular holiday destination.
Mothers are divided into Civita – town center – and the nearby Sasi Cliff. This sometimes includes steep rise-fall walks and highlights especially the breathtaking views from the national park Parco della Murgia Maturana.
The thirteenth-century cathedral of Santa Maria Della Bruner, made of tufa stone, stands above Sassi from the highest point of the Civita hill. The interior is rich in Baroque style, with stucco, paintings, gilded frames, and sculptures.
Several other churches have been carved out of tufa stone but a notable exception is 13th-century San Pietro. To see medieval cave paintings it is worth exploring the Apian route to the Crypta del Peccato original.
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