Holiday apartment in Matera: Sassi, rock churches and Murgia

Matera fascinates with a historic urban landscape closely connected to the rock. The Sassi World Heritage Site and the Park of the Rock Churches of Matera comprise a complex of houses, churches, monasteries and hermitages built into the natural caves of the Murgia. Within the World Heritage Site, the Murgia is a limestone plateau characterised by deep fissures, gorges, rocks and caves. The historic old town includes the districts of Barisano and Caveoso, as well as Casalnuovo and the city’s backbone known as the "Piano".

Nature and trails

The streets leading up to the Civita are accessible only on foot and lead into Matera’s city centre. The Parco della Murgia Materana comprises valleys, gorges, terraces and uplands with botanically and faunistically significant species. The Sentiero 406 forms a special connection between the city and the plateau: this panoramic trail connects the Sassi of Matera with the Murgia Timone plateau and crosses a suspension bridge over the Gravina stream. The trail begins at Porta Postergola, also known as Porta Pistola, and has an elevation difference of approximately 200 metres. The visitor route in Murgia Timone includes a fortified Neolithic village, an ancient cistern with a roof and the rock church of San Falcione.

Culture and history

The rock buildings themselves also preserve many traces of history. The rock monastery complex of Madonna delle Virtù and San Nicola dei Greci was founded in the 10th or 11th century. Today, 155 rock churches carved into the tuff are documented in Matera. MUSMA is a cave museum devoted entirely to sculpture; its collection covers Italian and international sculpture from the late 19th century to the present day.

Casa Noha is a historic house where a multimedia project conveys the history of the city of Matera. At the same time, Casa Noha is a starting point for walking tours through the Sassi and the Murgia. Beneath Piazza Vittorio Veneto lies the Palombaro Lungo, an underground cistern for collecting water. It can be visited via convenient walkways running above the water. The Crypt of the Original Sin can be visited by prior reservation. It was the place of worship of a Benedictine rock monastery from the Lombard period and is decorated with a cycle of frescoes from the 8th to 9th century.

Art and interpretation

The Ridola Museum displays collections and exhibition areas covering the Neolithic, Palaeolithic and prehistoric periods. The Rizzon Collection at the Ridola site comprises Greek-colonial pottery from the colonies on the Ionian Gulf. Since 2003, the National Museum of Medieval and Modern Art of Basilicata has been housed in Palazzo Lanfranchi. The museum’s exhibition tour is divided into three sections; works by Carlo Levi and Luigi Guerricchio are permanently displayed on the ground floor.

The Museo Laboratorio della Civiltà Contadina is an ethnographic-anthropological museum in Matera’s historic Sassi district. Casa di Ortega displays twenty polychrome bas-reliefs created during José Ortega’s stay in Matera. The works were created together with masters of Matera’s craft tradition using an old papier-mâché technique in an innovative way. Casa di Ortega offers educational activities for families and schools of all levels. In the Casa Grotta, multilingual audio explanations are available in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese.

Getting there

The Ferrovie Appulo Lucane railway connection between Bari and Matera serves the Matera Centrale and Matera Sud stations in Matera.

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