It has always been a dream of mine to visit this ancient city, which has also been nominated the "Capital of Culture 2019" in Italy. We had crossed the entire region of Basilicata which gifted us with STUNNING views of  ocra yellow and green valleys, little villages here and there, and hundreds of wind turbines every meter. It literally looked like the screensaver of my computer, but in real life. We even tried taking videos but our camera didn't do justice. The highway was EMPTY, and that contributed to the "magicness" of the landscapes.





We stayed in a huge apartment that was just less then 10min by car from the historical center. There is a public covered parking area that costs less than 2eur/hour, and parkings around the Castle. You just have to cross the main road Via Lucana which is the road that separates the new part from the old one, follow the directions towards the Sassi. Even if you just stroll around with no direction, you will not get lost.

Chiesa dei santi Pietro e Paolo

Once you enter the old part, you'll feel immersed to the history of the city, you can feel it is ancient and extraordinarily UNIQUE. I felt like walking through the roads of Jerusalem or something.




The city has been build and carved from the mountain, and the caves you can see were once inhabitated; but the conditions of the ones living inside were decaying and primitive, no electricity, no gas, no hygiene, so it was later forbidden to live in those caves, and inhabitants were forced to move.




Fortunately, we've been doubly lucky because some Dalì sculptures were places across the city.

Salvador Dalì's Melting Watch

Speaking about FOOD, prices in south Italy are cheap (compared to the rest of the country), there are many little stores, literally in every corner, that sell typical Materan street food like panini, stuffed fried pizza dough, varieties of salamis along with cheeses and Altamura bread, and my favourite of them all (that I'm craving so bad while writing this post) are the peperoni cruschi which are small bellpeppers (a variety that can only be found in this area) fried in olive oil until crisp. Simple but oh, so delicious.


Finally, we took a rest from all the walking and decided to watch the sun set over Matera, watching the sky turn from cotton candy pink to a jet black night.