Day 362: The Sassi of Matera

Time to explore the local world heritage site! Matera is famous for its Sassi, or cave dwellings, that have been used more or less continually since the bronze age around 9000 years ago. These days the main city sits on a plateau (where we were staying), but just nearby is a couple of canyons with a whole bunch of caves cut into them. These caves were used as peasant dwellings, right up until the 1950s. Quite interesting, so off we went.

Wandered down to the main area and started filming. Went inside one cave that's now a museum showing life as it was in the early 20th century. Basically everything happened in the caves - living, working, sleeping, and many professions like barbers, tailors, butchers, healers, and even professional mourners! Though the majority of the occupants were peasants and worked in fields nearby, they often kept their animals in the caves too.

It's hard to imagine that even after World War 2 in a first world country like Italy, people still lived in caves amongst animals and with no running water, sanitation or electricity (or maybe a single light bulb). In the 50s it was declared a national disgrace, and a program of forced removals was undertaken, where people were moved to new housing nearby, closer to their fields. But of course they lost their communities in the process, and over time many people came back.

And of course, in the 80s and 90s - gentrification happened. Nowadays many of the Sassi caves are occupied by fancy BnBs and hotels, along with cute restaurants and the usual trinket shops. Though there's still a large area where most of the caves are empty and barren.

One of our favourite spots was a church dug entirely into the rock. It's an example of "negative architecture" - ie, it's got the typical features of a church like columns, domed ceilings, frescoes, ornate stonework etc - but it's all been cut out of the existing rock, rather than shaped and stuck together. It was quite large and very impressive!

This was where Mel Gibson had filmed The Passion of the Christ, and the town has such an ancient feel to it that's been used as a Jerusalem set many times, including the 2016 Ben-Hur remake, the aforementioned Passion, and The Gospel According to Matthew, a famous Italian film from the 1960s.

Had a great lunch at a small location restaurant - delicious antipasti including the nicest eggplant I've ever had, a pasta dish, then a thick stew/soup for second, followed by fruit and coffee. All local style and local produce too which was great.

Spent a couple more hours wandering and filming before wrapping up and heading home for the day, satisfied with our visit. We both really enjoyed the site, it was something very different and not overrun with tourists either. Spent the rest of the afternoon at home doing various things - I finally got back into doing videos which I've been very slack about. My first video since we left Germany, though I've still got several weeks of content scheduled on YouTube!Read more