The Cammino Materano: 170 km on Foot from Bari to Matera Across the Murgia
A young trail linking two Apulian cities through masserie, cave churches and ravines — the slow alternative to hit-and-run tourism in southern Italy.
Foto: Emanuele Lorenzo Corti (CC BY-SA 4.0) — Wikimedia Commons
The Cammino Materano was born in 2019, when a group of walkers traced a route of roughly 170 kilometres from Bari to Matera across the Murgia plateau. It is a young trail, still little known, that crosses one of the most surprising regions of southern Italy without the crowds that engulfed Matera after its year as European Capital of Culture.
The route begins at the Basilica di San Nicola in central Bari and heads south-west. The opening kilometres cross the city's outskirts and then the Apulian countryside: centuries-old olive trees, dry-stone walls, fortified masserie. The landscape is not spectacular in any alpine sense — it is a horizontal beauty made of light, stone and sky.
Beyond Altamura you enter the heart of the Murgia, a karst plateau pitted with gravine — canyons carved by water through the limestone. Cave churches appear along the way: Byzantine frescoes in grottoes hollowed from the tufa, stone altars lit by natural light. There are dozens of them, scattered across the countryside, usually without signs or ticket offices.
The stages pass through borghi each of which deserves a stay of its own: Santeramo in Colle, Laterza with its ravine 200 metres deep, Ginosa with its cave quarter. These are places tourism barely reaches, where hospitality is genuine — you sleep in masserie, eat freshly baked Altamura bread, drink a farmer's Primitivo.
Arriving in Matera is the most moving moment: you descend into the Gravina canyon and climb back up toward the Sassi from the opposite side, watching them appear suddenly like a vision. After days of solitary walking across the Murgia, the city carved from rock seems even more extraordinary.
The trail takes 7–8 days. Accommodation is improving but not yet reliable throughout; booking ahead is advisable. The best seasons are March–May and October–November. In summer the heat on the Murgia is relentless and water is scarce.
This is a trail that tells a story of an unfamiliar Italy — the high plateau of Puglia where stone is the only building material and silence the only soundtrack.
Practical guides
Practical info
When is the best time to visit The Cammino Materano?
The recommended time is March, April, May, October and November, when it is less crowded.
Is The Cammino Materano crowded?
The Cammino Materano is a almost deserted destination compared with the more touristy ones.
Where is The Cammino Materano?
The Cammino Materano is located in From Bari to Matera, Puglia–Basilicata, Italy.
