Visiting Matera

The main places of interest to visit in Matera are the Sassi, the Piano where the historic center is developed and the nearby Murgia Materana Park. These three places merge into each other, offering the possibility of discovering the city through an evocative itinerary that runs through them.

The historic center skirts the upper part of the Sassi and is connected to it through arches, small bridges and narrow streets that descend from the plain to the ancient districts connecting these two very different environments.

To enter the Sassi, one only has to descend through one of the many entrances that descend downward from the plain.
It is also possible to admire the Sassi from above through some overlooks that are located at different points in the historic center.

I Sassi di Matera

The cultural landscape formed by the Sassi and the Murgia led Matera to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The seemingly chaotic structure of the Sassi, which grew over time with ever-changing spontaneous contributions and without any definite plan, today represents a millennia-old cultural stratification of great value. From the earliest rocky environments excavated presumably in prehistoric times we move on to complex medieval rock structures in which houses and caves alternate with churches, factories and vegetable gardens.

Even after the emergence on the floor of the seventeenth-eighteenth century axis of the historic center, the Sassi continued their life through the Renaissance, the Baroque to the present day. An evocative and unique landscape.

Of particular interest are the numerous rock churches in the Sassi. Often rising in places with more ancient frequentations, they represent the cultural transition there from the pagan world to the Catholic religion, which in Matera seems to coincide with the arrival of the Lombards.

Some of these churches are carved out of caves, others are dug into the rock simulating structures and finishes similar to churches built above ground.

Facing the Sassi of Matera, on the opposite side of the great canyon carved by the stream that laps them, it is possible to observe a rocky landscape that runs along the twenty kilometers of the Matera ravine.

Observing the steep slopes, plateaus and terraces of the Murgia Park, it is possible to imagine what was the primordial state of the places on which Matera arose. There are a large number of caves and rock shelters that over the centuries have been inhabited, transformed into villages, churches, farmhouses and factories of all sorts.