Matera Sassi Guided Tour with Cave House and Rock Church

The Sassi of Matera: Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso

The Sassi are two ancient districts of cave dwellings carved into the soft calcarenite stone on the slope of the Gravina ravine. People have lived in these caves since prehistoric times, which places Matera among the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world. Sasso Barisano, facing north-west, is the more built-up of the two, with carved façades, portals and small courtyards. Sasso Caveoso, facing south, keeps more of its open caves and steep stairways around the rock spur of Monterrone.

By the 1950s the Sassi had become a symbol of poverty, and their residents were moved to new districts. Restoration from the 1980s turned the caves into guesthouses, workshops and museums, UNESCO listed the Sassi and the rock churches in 1993, and Matera was European Capital of Culture in 2019. Is Matera worth visiting? For many travellers in southern Italy it is the most memorable stop of the trip.

Upper town: Church of San Francesco, Chiesa del Purgatorio and Piazza del Sedile

The tour begins in the Piano, the upper town built on the plateau above the Sassi between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Near the meeting point stands the Church of San Francesco d'Assisi, whose Baroque façade hides a much older church below, and the Chiesa del Purgatorio, an eighteenth-century church whose carved portal is decorated with skulls and skeletons that remind passers-by of the passing of time.

Piazza del Sedile was the seat of the town council from the sixteenth century; its palace, with two bell towers and statues of saints, now hosts the music conservatory. This part of the route is short but useful, because your guide explains how the upper town and the cave districts grew together, so that the views that follow make sense. The cafés around the square are a pleasant place to sit after the tour.

Rock church of Sant'Antonio Abate

Matera and the Murgia plateau across the ravine are dotted with rupestrian churches, chapels carved directly into the rock by monastic communities and local people from the early Middle Ages onward. The complex of Sant'Antonio Abate in Sasso Caveoso groups several small chapels cut side by side into the tufa in the thirteenth century; centuries later some of them were used as storerooms, which is part of the story your guide tells.

Inside you see altars, niches, carved arches and traces of painted decoration, and a small surprise linked to local traditions that is revealed on the spot. Entry is included in this tour, so you do not need separate rock church tickets or a second queue. The visit lasts about fifteen minutes, and the cool air inside the stone is welcome on a summer afternoon.

Via Madonna delle Virtù and the Gravina ravine

Via Madonna delle Virtù is the panoramic road that runs along the outer edge of the Sassi, high above the Gravina di Matera canyon. From here you look across to the Murgia Materana Park, where caves and rock chapels pierce the opposite cliff, and down over the rooftops, where the roof of one dwelling often forms the lane of the next. It is the classic viewpoint for photos of the whole cave town.

The best time to visit Matera for photographs is the late afternoon, when warm light falls on the stone; the afternoon departure catches it for much of the year, while the morning tour is cooler in summer. Spring and autumn are the most comfortable seasons, and winter brings quiet lanes and clear air. After this stop the route turns into Via Fiorentini, the old artisans' lane of Sasso Barisano.

Furnished cave house museum in Sasso Caveoso

The highlight for many guests is the visit to a typical cave house furnished as it was in the first half of the twentieth century. A single carved room held the whole family: the bed raised high above the damp floor, the mule and hens in a corner, the cistern that collected rainwater, the loom, the kitchen tools and the children's cradle hung from the ceiling.

Standing inside the cave makes clear why the Sassi became a national issue after the Second World War, and why their rebirth is such a striking story today. The visit takes about twenty minutes and your entry ticket is included. Afterwards the tour ends in Sasso Caveoso, close to the Church of San Pietro Caveoso, where you can stay on to explore at your own pace or walk back up to the upper town.