what to see plus the best restaurants and hotels

‘Tourist hordes’ is not a phrase you’re

likely to hear in Basilicata but given
its rich cuisine, stunning national
parks, ancient towns and great
beaches, it’s hard to fathom why this
seductive region remains so quiet
MATERA What to see and do
The cave houses, Sassi, of Matera are
thought to be the first human dwellings
in Italy, delved maybe 9,000 years ago.
But by the 20th century they were places
of inhuman squalor and penury. Author
Carlo Levi, exiled to Basilicata by the
fascists in the 1930s, wrote: “In these
dark holes with walls cut out of the earth
I saw a few miserable beds, and some
rags hanging up … I have never in my life
seen such a picture of poverty.”

The Sassi lay empty for decades after the

war, their inhabitants rehoused, but from
the 1980s people started moving back,
modernising caves and converting them
into hotels, bars and shops. Matera
gained Unesco world heritage listing in
1993 and is now more prosperous, but
there has been no jarring change in
appearance or atmosphere. The steep
steps, rocky outcrops and stone alleyways
could be Babylon or biblical-era
Jerusalem, and have been used in films
including, recently, the 2016 remake of
Ben Hur, Wonder Woman and this year’s
Mary Magdalene.
The Casa Grotta cave house museum Now scrubbing up for its year as
European Capital of Culture in 2019,
Matera is more striking than pretty –
Levi wrote of its “painful beauty” –
but few other living cities in Europe
have such a magical air of real
antiquity.

The Sassi are in two sections,

the Barisano and the older Caveoso,
where more of the sights are. There
are over 150 rock-cut churches here
and in the countryside nearby, many
of which can be visited (tickets from
€2.50 for one church to €6 for three).
Less-visited than most – it’s a 15-
minute walk south along
the Gravina ravine – is 13th-century
Santa Barbara, with astounding rock
paintings.

The hard life of cave-dwelling

peasants is recreated in the Casa
Grotta (adult €2) on Vico Solitario,
with two furnished cave rooms
complete with animals and papà
enthroned on a stone latrine in a
corner.
Beneath Piazza Vittorio Veneto, the Palombaro Lungo is a 16-metre deep series of water tanks dug in the early 1800s to keep
Matera, high on its limestone hill, supplied with water in hot dry summers. A €3 ticket (under-18s free) includes a guided tour
(four a day in English) of cisterns waterproofed with terracotta and porcelain. They are as impressive as any cathedral,
though excavated from the earth rather than soaring skywards.

Matera is not all about old stones; there are new ones at the Musma contemporary sculpture museum (closed Mondays), in
16th-century Palazzo Pomarici, whose collection includes works by Picasso and De Chirico as well as striking modern works in
plastic, glass and metal.
 Elisa &
Janna Pandora Cuoio
 Where to eat

Ristorante Stano
Fior di Cucuzza
*

Casa Diva
*
 Pollino

Rivertribe

viaggiarenelpollino.it
agriturismo in
nearby Laino Borgo

San Antonio
festival
 Where to stay
B&B L’Oasi

Il Borgo Ospitale

Rifugio Fasanelli
 Where to eat

On the outskirts of Policoro, near the Ionian coast, Gusti Lucani (two courses €15, unofficial page on Facebook) is famous for
meatballs of pork and pecorino cheese, and Lucanian orecchiette pasta, with tomato sauce rather than the greens offered in Puglia.

In Rotonda, A Rimissa restaurant (two courses €20) is owned by the albergo diffuso and makes the most of ingredients such as local
red aubergines, served lightly pickled as an antipasto, and round white poverelli beans. The place is celebrated for its grilled meats,
but I was most taken by the fileddri(fat spaghetti) with sauces of either wild greens, dried peppers and tiny chillies; or ricotta and
cured pig’s cheek.
This is an area where the salami speciality changes every few kilometres – with fennel in one village, say, but paprika up the road. At Il
Ristoro del Carbonaio (four courses with wine €25), a converted roadkeeper’s house near the mountain village of Viggianello, a
lunchtime bean and potato stew (€7) is good hiking fuel, and owner Franco tells proudly how the hand-cut prosciutto comes from a pig
keeper up the road, and the tangy cheese is a goat/sheep mixture made by a woman in the next valley.