48 hours in Matera: a weekend in Europe's oldest city

Matera does something to first-time visitors. You turn a corner off an ordinary Italian shopping street, the ground falls away, and suddenly you're looking at a bowl of honey-coloured houses carved into a cliff — a city that has been continuously inhabited for roughly nine thousand years. People genuinely gasp. We've watched it happen from our windows.

This is the two-day plan we give our guests. It's walkable end to end, it front-loads the icons, and it leaves room for the thing Matera does best: aimless wandering.

First, three practical things

• Wear real shoes. The Sassi are polished cobbles, slopes and staircases. Sandals with grip at minimum; trainers ideally.
• Carry water and sun cover in summer. The stone radiates heat at midday. Do big walks early and late; that's also when the light is best.
• Come by train or park outside the centre. The old town is a limited-traffic zone (ZTL). Matera is best done entirely on foot anyway — staying centrally means the whole city is your hallway.

Day one: the two Sassi

Morning — Sasso Barisano, then context

Start with cappuccino and a pastry, then simply walk downhill into Sasso Barisano, the more restored of the two ancient districts. Don't navigate; drift. Every staircase eventually leads somewhere good, and the joy of the first morning is realising the "buildings" around you are facades attached to caves.

When you want the story behind what you're seeing, go to Casa Noha, a small multimedia exhibit run by Italy's national heritage fund (FAI). In about twenty-five minutes it explains how Matera went from prehistoric settlement, to post-war "national shame", to UNESCO World Heritage Site (1993) and European Capital of Culture (2019). Seeing it early transforms the rest of the weekend.

Midday — the city under the city

Back on Piazza Vittorio Veneto, queue for the short guided visit of Palombaro Lungo — a colossal water cistern hollowed out beneath the main square, deep enough to swallow a five-storey building. Matera's genius was always water: the entire hill is honeycombed with channels and reservoirs like this one. It's the single most surprising fifteen minutes in town.

Lunch nearby can be as simple as focaccia or a panzerotto eaten standing up — save your sit-down dinner for tonight. (Our food guide has specifics.)

Afternoon — the Civita and Sasso Caveoso

Climb to the Civita, the fortified spur between the two Sassi, where Matera Cathedral has watched over the city since the thirteenth century. The Apulian-Romanesque exterior is austere; the interior is exuberantly baroque; the terrace in front has one of the best free views in Matera.

Descend into Sasso Caveoso, the rawer, less restored district. Two stops matter here. Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario is a cave dwelling preserved as a family last lived in it — bed, hearth, loom and stable for the mule, all in one room. And Santa Maria de Idris, a church burrowed into its own rock outcrop, hangs above the ravine like something from a dream.

Evening — the sunset ledge

For sunset, find the terraces around Piazzetta Pascoli or the square in front of San Pietro Caveoso and watch the whole amphitheatre of the city turn amber, then rose, then lamp-lit. Dinner afterwards in a cave restaurant — book ahead — then walk home through lanes that have gone quiet and golden. This last walk is, for many guests, the moment Matera gets them for good.

Day two: the ravine and the painted caves

Morning — across the Gravina

Today, see the city from outside. Cross the Gravina ravine on the suspended footbridge and climb the opposite slope to the Belvedere di Murgia Timone — the viewpoint where every famous photograph of Matera is taken. Allow two to three hours round trip, take water, and go early in warm months. The path down and up is rocky but short; the reward is the full sweep of the Sassi across the void, with hawks riding the thermals between you and nine millennia of city.

The plateau you're standing on, the Parco della Murgia Materana, is scattered with over a hundred rupestrian (rock-cut) churches left by monastic communities. If the hike isn't for you, the belvedere is also reachable by road or local shuttle — ask us and we'll point you the right way for the day's conditions.

Afternoon — frescoes, then a slow evening

Back in town, dedicate the afternoon to the painted churches you skipped yesterday: San Pietro Barisano, with its bell tower above ground and its halls below, and the double-decker complex of Madonna delle Virtù and San Nicola dei Greci. Combined tickets cover several churches; buy at the first one you enter.

If you have energy left, MUSMA — Matera's museum of contemporary sculpture, installed inside the caves of a seventeenth-century palazzo — is the single best marriage of ancient container and modern content in the city.

Then let the itinerary dissolve: gelato on Via Ridola, browsing on Via del Corso, an aperitivo on Piazza Vittorio Veneto as the evening passeggiata flows past, and one last look over the rim of the Sassi as the lights come on.

The weekend, hour by hour

Questions guests ask us