The Cave Houses of Matera.

The country side changed from mountainous to hilly as we left the coast and headed south east to the town of Matera. (See the last photo.)

Matera is a fascinating place but very ancient. Aside from Petra, Jordan, Matera is the oldest continuously-inhabited settlement in history. It was the location chosen by Mel Gibson for his film 'The Passion of Christ' and had been used as the setting in many other films.  Matera was known at one stage as 'The shame of Italy' because of the extreme poverty there.  These days it is a lovely modern city but it is the ancient dwellings which draw the visitors. They are basically cave houses but, don’t always look like caves from the outside. These dwellings, carved into the rock, look like homes piled one on top of the other. It’s an ingenious, and space-saving, design: Step onto one of the narrow lanes between houses, and you’re actually standing on the roof of the house below. It’s also smart when it comes to sharing water, since water would be gathered on the plateau above the town and then come down so that the entire community could share it. Two main quarters sprung up in Matera that were built this way… and these are the two sassi.

You can also see caves in the distance that are Palaeolithic caves located across the ravine from Matera’s ancient centre. (Seen in some of the 4th group of photos)もっと詳しく