Welcome back to When Wine Calls – “2025 Wine Afficionados Tour”.
On arrival in Matera it was like the logistics in Vieste with us driving to a private parking yard on the outskirts of town and catching a minibus to our hotel in the Old Town. Experiencing the bus driver negotiate the skinny roads up to the hotel I was quietly pleased that it was the case as how he didn’t wipe the bus out on the tight rock walls was beyond belief.
We had booked into Palazzo Degil Abati Hotel which was located on a cliff overlooking the “Sassi” area, a complex of cave dwellings carved into the mountainside. Our room was located at the front of the hotel and was a cave built into the cliff face with access to the bathroom requiring you to remember to duck your head each time to access. It provided a great introduction to the cave dwellings we would see later exploring the Old Town albeit in a lot more comfort than those inhabitants endured all those years ago.
The hotel had a restaurant on the roof terrace which had the most amazing views over the valley which we could enjoy for both breakfast,
as well as happy hour with the sun setting over the sassi and the old town lighting up like a Christmas tree. The view was mesmerising and one where each time you looked out you saw another aspect that you hadn’t seen previously.
Matera is the third oldest continuously inhabited civilisation in the world dating back to as early as the Paleolithic period in 7000BC – the only civilisations older are Jericho and Aleppo. The Sassi di Matera comprises two districts (Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano) which were inhabited by cave dwellers until the government forcefully relocated the inhabitants in the 1950’s into the developing modern city citing unhealthy living conditions.
The morning after our arrival we went on a walking tour with a guide who lives in the new town and is heavily involved in the ongoing archaeological searches in the Old Town to uncover more of its history. Interestingly, the meeting point for the tour was Piazza San Pietro Caveoso, a picturesque square in the in the heart of the Old Town, which was used as the main location for the James Bond film “No Time to Die”.
From the square you look out over the Parco Regionale della Murgia Materana, a preserved park area that contains ancient rupestrian churches and settlements carved into the rugged cliff face on the opposite side of the ravine dating back to the 8th Century.
As there was only one other couple on the tour the guide took us to some of the more remote areas of the sassi including a cave that has been converted into a small souvenir shop run by a local man he knew well that allowed us to see how the caves are stacked on top of each other and pushed out sideways over time to create more space – fascinating to see how the local people lived for so long in this area. Across the square is the Cathedral of Maria Santisim of the Bruna & Sant’ Eustachio which dates to the 1200’s.
Walking around the ancient streets and looking into the abandoned caves as well as those that have been renewed into modern restaurants and hotels was amazing and well worth the effort to get to this historical town before it becomes another victim of overtourism.
During the tour we also visited inside Palombaro lunga, a giant underground cistern with a capacity of over 5 million litres dug out by hand and used until the 1930’s as the town’s water reserve during summer and a marvel of ingenuity for the era. It is, indeed the unique water collection system throughout the town that the Sassi of Matera became, in 1933 Unesco World Heritage.
Throughout the Old Town were some amazing sculptures from an Italian artist Andrea Roggi. Curious about the artist we researched and found that Andrea is a Tuscan sculpture born in 1962 and has a Circle of Life Gallery in Cortona. He has located many of his works throughout Italy and would see more throughout Puglia and also when we arrived in Florence later in our trip – simply stunning and great to see them located in unique outdoor locations such as throughout Matera.
On our last night we decided to eat at a local restaurant near the hotel after a sunset drink on the hotel terrace.
We went to dinner early and sitting next to us was another couple from our part of Australia that unbelievably were neighbours of friends so we spend the whole evening talking and laughing with them – it was a great unexpected evening finished off when the owner’s son invited me down into the basement of the restaurant to view their impressive wine cellar full of wines from all over Italy. I was gone so long that Pauline thought I had got lost down there but it was a great experience in such an historic location.
The next day it was reluctantly time to leave Matera, hop back in the car for the drive south to the wonderful area of Puglia that we had fell in love with in 2023. We had thoroughly enjoyed our few days exploring Matera but were excited to be back on the road.
Join us next time as we again experience life amongst the olive trees and embrace the wonderful historical towns and beaches in the south of Puglia – see you then.
Bruce & Pauline
When Wine Calls 
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