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Matera is small and the list is short, which is a compliment.
You are not going to be choosing between forty attractions. There are perhaps six things that matter, they are all cheap, and the town itself is the seventh and the best of them. What follows is ranked by how much of it you will still be thinking about a month later, not by how prominently it appears on a map.
The planning around all of this is in my complete guide to Matera.
What to book before you come
Matera is the one place I would tell you not to do entirely alone. The Sassi are a thousand years of people digging into a rock face and there is almost no signage, so what you see without a guide is a beautiful and largely unreadable town.
- A guided walk through the Sassi, with a cave house. Two hours, and the one thing on this page I would call essential. 4.7 from over seven thousand people, which for a small city is a very large number. The cave house is what turns the view into a history.
- The Sassi with the rock-cut churches included. The same walk with entry to the frescoed churches carved into the stone. Take this version if you have any interest at all in the painting; it is the difference between seeing where people lived and seeing what they believed.
- The city centre tour, cave churches and houses. Shorter and gentler on the legs, which matters here more than it sounds. Everything in Matera is steps.
The belvedere on the far side of the ravine, the walk down to the Gravina and the whole of the upper town cost nothing.
1. Go inside a furnished cave house
Eight euros on a combined ticket that also takes in a snow store, a natural grotto and a rock-cut church. Roughly nine in the morning to seven in the evening in season. Fifteen minutes for the house itself.
One room, cut into rock. A high bed, because the space underneath it was storage. A loom. A recess along one wall where the mule stood, since the animal lived in the room and its warmth was part of the heating. A cistern mouth in the floor. Six to twelve people lived in this.
Do this on your first morning. Everything you walk past afterwards, every doorway in every lane, changes meaning once you have stood inside one.
2. Let the town explain itself, indoors
Seven euros, free to FAI members, roughly ten to seven, and half an hour of your time.
There is a multimedia history museum in an old palazzo that tells the story of the Sassi properly: the settlement, the water, the overcrowding, the clearance in the 1950s and the return. It is well made, it is air conditioned, and it is the single best preparation for the rest of your visit.
If you can only do this or the cave house, do both. They take forty-five minutes between them.
3. Walk down into the cistern
About three euros, small guided groups on limited slots, usually mid-morning and mid-afternoon. There is no online booking, so buy at the entrance and go early rather than late in the day.
Beneath the main square is a rock-cut water chamber fifteen metres deep, its walls rendered smooth, its roof carved into vaults. It held the town’s water for centuries and was then forgotten so thoroughly that the square above it became a car park.
You descend on a walkway, the temperature drops, and there is one shaft of daylight from the opening far above. It is the moment Matera stops being a pretty hillside and becomes a piece of engineering.
4. The rock-cut churches
Two to four euros each, and there are more than a hundred and fifty in and around the town.
They are not churches built of stone. They are churches subtracted from it: naves, columns, domes and apses all cut out of the living rock, many of them painted, some with frescoes going back to the eighth or ninth century. The best of them is outside town and visited by appointment only.
They have a guide of their own in the rupestrian churches of Matera.
5. Cross the ravine to the other side
Half a day on foot, or fifteen minutes by car.
The Sassi cannot be seen from inside the Sassi. The shape of the town only exists from the far rim of the gorge, which is why every photograph you have seen was taken from over there. Walking it means descending into the ravine, crossing a suspension footbridge over the river and climbing the far side: about four kilometres in total, roughly ninety minutes, moderate.
Full detail in the Belvedere and the Murgia park.
6. A museum of sculpture in a cave
A contemporary sculpture collection housed in a palazzo whose lower rooms are hypogea, carved chambers under the building.
I did not expect much of this and was wrong. Modern metal in a rough rock chamber does something to both: the sculpture looks older and stranger, the rock looks deliberate. It is also, on a hot afternoon, blessedly cool.
7. The town itself, twice
The thing that will actually stay with you is not on this list.
Walk Sasso Caveoso in the first hour of light, when the shutters are down and the shadows are long and there is nobody about. Then walk it again after six, when the chairs come out into the doorways and somebody is calling a child two tiers up.
Same lanes. Different town. That is the whole of Matera and it costs nothing.
8. Walk the town as Jerusalem
Matera has been standing in for the ancient Near East on film for sixty years, to the point that it has a nickname for it: cinema’s Little Jerusalem. Knowing the locations changes how you read the lanes, because you have almost certainly already seen them.
The Passion of the Christ used the town most thoroughly. The Last Supper was filmed in the rock church of San Nicola dei Greci, and the procession of the cross went up the steep lanes of Sasso Caveoso, which is why that half of the town looks familiar in a way you cannot immediately place.
Ben-Hur used it as Jerusalem outright in 2016.
Wonder Woman used it for Themyscira, which is a stranger fit and works because the stacked stone reads as any old civilisation you like.
And No Time to Die opened here, with the cemetery scene and then the Aston Martin chase through the lanes and out over the ravine.
You do not need a tour for this. Walk Sasso Caveoso, stand at the Idris rock, look back at the Civita, and the film versions assemble themselves.
What to skip
Not much, but a few honest notes.
The souvenir shops selling small carved tufo objects are pleasant and completely interchangeable. There is no need to do more than one or two rock churches inside the town if you are going out to the painted crypt. And in July and August, do not attempt the ravine walk in the middle of the day, which people do, and regret.
Read also: the Sassi of Matera, a Matera itinerary, and my complete guide to Matera.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the one thing you should do in Matera?
Go inside a furnished cave house. It costs eight euros and takes fifteen minutes, and it reframes every lane you walk afterwards. Pair it with the multimedia history museum on your first morning and the rest of your stay makes far more sense.
How much do the sites in Matera cost?
Very little. A furnished cave house is eight euros on a combined ticket, the underground cistern about three, the multimedia history museum seven, and individual rock-cut churches two to four euros each. The painted crypt outside town is ten. Walking the Sassi themselves is free.
Do you need to book anything in advance in Matera?
Two things. The underground cistern runs small guided groups on limited slots and does sell out. The painted crypt outside town is by appointment only with no walk-ins. Almost everything else you can simply turn up to.
How long does the ravine walk take?
About ninety minutes round trip for roughly four kilometres, descending into the gorge, crossing a suspension footbridge and climbing the far side. It is moderate rather than hard, but it wants proper shoes and an early start in summer. Driving round takes about fifteen minutes.
Is Matera worth more than a day?
Yes. One day covers the headline sights and feels rushed. Two is comfortable. Three lets you cross the ravine, see the painted crypt and spend early mornings and evenings in the streets, which is when the town is at its best.
