City walk Basilicata — Matera, Italy

The Sassi of Matera — Cave City on the Ravine

A day on foot through the two cave districts of Matera — Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso — their rock churches and cave houses, ending at the viewpoint across the Murgia ravine.

The Sassi of Matera — Cave City on the Ravine — Photo: Bönisch · CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Duration: 1 days
Distance: 5 km
Difficulty: Moderate
Best season: April–June and September–October; the Basilicata summer is brutally hot and the Sassi have almost no shade

Matera is a city carved out of its own hillside. The Sassi — Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano, wrapped around the rock spur of the Civita — are two districts of dwellings cut into soft calcarenite above a ravine called the Gravina. People have lived here since roughly 7000 BC, which makes it one of the longest continuously inhabited places on earth.

It is not a sanitised heritage set. In the 1950s the Italian state forcibly emptied the Sassi: the caves were crowded, malarial and desperately poor, a national embarrassment. They stood largely abandoned for decades before restoration brought people, hotels and restaurants back. That double history — prehistoric and very recent — is what you are walking through. UNESCO listed the Sassi in 1993.

The walking. There is no such thing as a flat route here. The Sassi are a vertical maze of stairways; alleys run across the roofs of the houses below them, and you will climb and descend constantly. Nothing is technical, but the steps are endless and uneven, and the stone is polished slick.

Getting there. FAL trains from Bari reach Matera Centrale in about 1.5 hours. From the station it is a short walk to Piazza Vittorio Veneto, where this route starts.

Tickets. The Sassi themselves are free to wander. Individual rock churches, the Casa Grotta and the Palombaro Lungo each charge a small separate admission (typically a few euros); combined church tickets are sold in the Sassi.

Good to know:

Wear shoes with grip. This is the single most useful thing you can do here.
Carry water and start early — there is little shade, and midday sun in the ravine is punishing.
Weekends and holidays bring large tour groups into narrow alleys; a weekday is calmer.

Day 1

Barisano, Caveoso and the ravine

Piazza Vittorio Veneto → Murgia ravine viewpoint 5 km

Navigate this day

A loop down into Sasso Barisano, across the Civita, through Sasso Caveoso and out to the edge of the Gravina ravine.

Segments

Piazza Vittorio Veneto and the underground cistern 0.4 km 📍 Map

Piazza Vittorio Veneto → Belvedere Luigi Guerricchio

Paved squares and steps

Start in the modern town's main square — which sits directly on top of the Palombaro Lungo, an enormous rock-cut cistern hollowed out beneath the piazza and only rediscovered in the 1990s (guided visits, small ticket). Then walk to the terrace at the square's edge, where the Sassi drop away below you all at once. About 45 minutes with the cistern.

About this place

Matera is a city and the capital of the Province of Matera in the region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy. With a history of continuous occupation dating back to prehistory, it is renowned for its rock-cut urban core, whose twin cliffside zones are known collectively as the Sassi.
Read more on Wikipedia ↗
Photo: Benjamin Smith · CC BY-SA 4.0
Down into Sasso Barisano 1 km 📍 Map

Belvedere Luigi Guerricchio → San Pietro Barisano

Stone stairways and cave alleys

Descend into the northern district, the more restored of the two, where cave facades now hold hotels and workshops. At its lower edge stands San Pietro Barisano, the largest rupestrian church in the city — a church dug back into the rock, its walls stripped of frescoes by thieves in the twentieth century. Around an hour.
Up over the Civita to the Cathedral 0.8 km 📍 Map

San Pietro Barisano → Matera Cathedral

Steep stepped lanes

Climb the rock spur that divides the two Sassi. On top sits the thirteenth-century Cathedral, its tall bell tower the landmark you can see from almost anywhere in Matera, and from the terrace beside it both districts open up below. A short distance, a lot of steps — about 45 minutes.

About this place

Matera Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Matera, Basilicata, Italy. It is dedicated to the Virgin Mary under the designation of the Madonna della Bruna and to Saint Eustace. Formerly the seat of the Bishops, later Archbishops, of Matera, it is now the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Matera-Irsina.
Read more on Wikipedia ↗
Photo: Benjamin Smith · CC BY-SA 4.0
Sasso Caveoso and its rock churches 1 km 📍 Map

Matera Cathedral → San Pietro Caveoso

Cave alleys and rooftop paths

Drop into the southern district, the rawer and more archaic of the two, where alleys genuinely run across the roofs of the houses below. Here are Santa Maria de Idris, wedged into a freestanding rock outcrop, and Santa Lucia alle Malve nearby, with the church of San Pietro Caveoso standing above the ravine. About 1.5 hours with the churches.

About this place

San Pietro Caveoso, also known as "Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church" is a Catholic church situated in the Sassi of Matera.
Read more on Wikipedia ↗
Photo: Luca Aless · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Casa Grotta and the Murgia viewpoint 1.5 km 📍 Map

San Pietro Caveoso → Murgia ravine viewpoint

Cave alleys, then rough path along the ravine edge

First the Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario: a single cave dwelling kept exactly as it was when a family, their mule and their chickens shared one room — the clearest answer to what the 1950s evictions were about. Then follow the edge of the Gravina to a viewpoint looking across the ravine at the Murgia plateau, where roughly 150 rock churches are scattered through the park on the far side, and the whole cave city faces you at once. Best at the end of the day, in low light. About an hour.

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