Matera is the third oldest city in the world. Now I know you just asked yourselves what is number 1 and number 2? Number 1 is Aleppo, Turkey and number 2 is Jericho in Jordan. Tied for number 3 is Cappadocia, Turkey. I have been at 3 out of 4. Not bad.

Anyhow, Matera is basically an extensive cave dwelling district called the sassi located in the southern region of Basillicata. The caves have been inhabited for centuries and past down from family to family.

The steps were treacherous because they have been there for thousands of years and were steep and slippery. Most of us had walking sticks so that certainly helped. This is a UNESCO site that means no added handrails. But what goes down must come up. I have always felt that climbing up is much easier than going down. We were able to view a traditional cave dwelling that was very interesting.

The families lived all in one room. The normal family size was 10 children. But with the close living quarters disease ran rampant with many dying of malaria and other diseases.

We were only in Matera for a few hours so we did not see the churches that were carved into the caves. Our guide gave us some interesting information about the “modern” treatment of the residents by the Italian government. Apparently by the 1950’s the cave city was filled with people living in poverty. Now remember that these cave homes had been passed down for generations. The Italian government decided that the best way to deal with this issue was to move everybody out of the cave communities and relocate them to apartment buildings outside the city with no compensation for their previous homes. By 1980 everything was “cleaned up” and gentrified with the caves being turned into hotels and Bed and Breakfasts. As compensation for losing their homes the Italian government allowed the “original residents” to come back and manage the properties but they were not allowed to live there. The site became a UNESCO site in 1993. Matera was one of the filming locations for Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ.

Of course after the tour we had to have some retail therapy and lunch. The next day we learned that after we left the town there were torrential rains. Nino showed us a news video of it and it looked like a dam had failed and all the water was running down the mountain and in this case into the cave city. Anyone walking down there had to be terrified and possibly injured. I would have posted the video but it was all in Italian with lots of ads.

On to Trani for the last part of our main tour. Very sad face.