Basilicata is an overlooked region above the instep of Italy’s heel, most famously immortalized in Carlo Levis groundbreaking 1945 novel, Christ Stopped at Eboli, as a grim and impoverished area whose inhabitants were seen as subhuman by the rest of Italy. In fact, it is a fascinating tourist destination where windswept colls crowned by forbidding, sunbaked citadels stretch across vast expanses of solitude. Nowhere else in Italy does life go on at such a simple and traditional pace. And Basilicata’s most interesting destination is Matera, an amazing town dug out of the living rock and dating back to prehistoric times.
The town, one of only 630 UNESCO World Heritage Sites around the globe, is situated along two dramatic gorges, the Sasso Caveoso and the Sasso Barisano. For more than 7000 years, the inhabitants of Matera dug their houses out of the soft limestone walls of the gorges, and it was only in the 1950?s that the Italian government deemed the cave-like dwellings to be unfit for habitation, a move motivated more by a desire for the semblance of progress than by actual danger. The older habitations, found on the Sasso Caveoso, are more primitive in appearance: the sassi, as they are called, are piled on top of each other, with holes serving as doorways and chimneys. Inside they are cool and damp, and it is amazing to think that these small spaces once accomodated entire families and their livestock. The sassi of the Sasso Barisano are more recent, and consist mainly of caves onto which bright white fronts have been built. And, while the Sasso Caveoso is completely uninhabited, the Sasso Barisano is undergoing something of a revival: many sassi there have been converted into new homes and boutiques. The oldest caves in Matera are the chiese rupestri across the gorge from the Sasso Caveoso in the Parco della Murgia Materana.. These are ancient religious shrines, many with their altars still standing. Those wishing to explore the sassi should follow the signs in town to the APT Tourist Office (Via de Marco, 9; tel. 0835 33 19 83; open M-Sa 8:30am-1:30pm) and pick up a map.
