Instagram Travel
7 Most Instagrammable Spots in Matera, Italy's Cave City
Matera's ancient cave districts, carved into a limestone ravine and inhabited for thousands of years, turn gold at sunset in a way few Italian towns can match.
Sep 24, 2026 · BigTravel.in
Matera, in the southern Italian region of Basilicata, is built into and out of a limestone ravine, its Sassi cave districts occupied continuously since prehistoric times and still inhabited today, after decades of restoration following their evacuation in the 1950s. It was named a European Capital of Culture in 2019 and has since appeared in several major film productions, drawn by a stone-and-shadow look that photographs like almost nowhere else. Here are seven spots worth building a visit around, each with a direct map link.
1. Belvedere di Piazza Pascoli
The single best overview of Sasso Caveoso, the older and more dramatic of Matera's two cave districts, tiered dwellings and rock churches stacked down the ravine wall opposite, especially striking in the low light of early morning or late afternoon.
2. Sasso Barisano at golden hour
The larger and more developed of the two Sassi districts, now home to boutique hotels and restaurants built directly into the old caves, its rooftops and church domes catching a particular warm light in the hour before sunset.
3. Matera Cathedral
Perched on the ridge between the two Sassi districts, the 13th-century Romanesque cathedral offers both a striking facade in its own right and one of the best vantage points over the ravine and cave districts on either side.
4. A cave house interior at Casa Grotta
Several former cave dwellings have been preserved as small museums, furnished as they were before the 1950s evacuation, offering the rare chance to photograph a genuine cave interior rather than just its carved facade.
5. Palombaro Lungo
Matera's largest underground cistern, a vast water reservoir carved beneath the main square, Piazza Vittorio Veneto, with vaulted stone chambers that make for a genuinely different kind of shot after the sunlit ravine views above.
6. Chiesa di Santa Maria di Idris
A rock church built directly into a pinnacle of stone rising from the middle of Sasso Caveoso, reachable by a short climb, with faded medieval frescoes inside and one of the ravine's most distinctive silhouettes from below.
7. Matera after dark
Once the day-trip crowds leave, the Sassi are lit by warm street lighting that picks out the ravine's stacked rooflines against the dark, considered by many repeat visitors the single most striking version of the view, best seen again from Belvedere di Piazza Pascoli.
Traveller tips
- Matera has no major airport of its own; most visitors fly into Bari, roughly an hour and a half away by car or bus.
- The Sassi districts involve constant steps and uneven stone; comfortable, sturdy footwear matters more here than in most Italian towns.
- Many cave hotels book out well ahead in summer; reserve early if a Sassi stay rather than a modern-town hotel is the goal.
- Spring and autumn bring milder temperatures for the climb between viewpoints than the height of an Italian summer.
Where this is
Matera, Basilicata, Italy