Matera

The whole concept of this journey began almost exactly 2 years ago, when I was first shown a picture of Matera.

The image of this biblical looking tumble of ancient stone dwellings utterly captivated me. I knew I wanted to be in this place.

And today here we are. It's indescribable, really. There's a serenity here that belies its lengthy turbulent past. This is one of the oldest known human settlements in the world. People may have been living here since 7000 BC.

Centuries of human history shown on worn smooth stone roads, crumbling stone carvings, and churches carved into caves. The roofs of homes become the road underneath the next level above them. It's extraordinary. It's hard to look away from the vista in front of us, yet the eye is drawn across the valley below to the more rudimentary ancient caves in the stony side facing us.

I can feel those people, and the low murmur of voices around us today could as easily be echoes of voices long gone.

Its hard not to be poetic, in a place of such inspirational beauty.

Here, in the 1950s, the people who lived in these dwellings called sassi were existing in devastating poverty. The Italian government deemed this to be a national shame. They built modern housing and forcibly relocated citizens who could well have been living in the same caves their families had been in for centuries.

Since the 1993, Matera has been a UNESCO protected site that is recognized for its "exceptional and universal value as a cultural and national treasure."

Efforts are ongoing to preserve this city and it continues to offer up surprises. Recent roadworks revealed an entirely unsuspected church featuring medieval frescoes.

We've walked all day, into the evening and night. Few places can rival the mystical, magnetic draw of Matera.

Its prehistoric, it's Norman, it's biblical, it's old and it's new, it's all of human history, and all of us began in places such as this.

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