Matera in February: the Sassi without crowds, tufa in winter, and cave churches

Anyone who has visited Matera in July or August knows what we're talking about: narrow alleys jammed with tourists, selfies in front of every viewpoint, tripled prices, impossible to move freely through the Sassi. Anyone who has visited in February knows a different Matera exists. The same city, the same limestone rock, the same two thousand years of unbroken history — but empty, silent, sometimes misty, sometimes brilliantly clear with winter light cutting through the stones like a scalpel.

The Sassi without crowds: Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso

Matera has been continuously inhabited for at least six thousand years, making it one of the oldest continuously settled sites in Europe. The Sassi — the two neighbourhoods carved and built into the calcareous tufa of the ravines — were forcibly emptied in the 1950s by the national government, which considered them a "national disgrace" due to sanitary conditions. Today they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and house luxury hotels in the old hypogea. In February you walk among the cave dwellings almost in solitude: you can descend freely between Sasso Barisano and Sasso Caveoso, explore alleys that climb and drop without apparent logic, and slip into the cave churches scattered across the slopes.

The cave churches and the Palombaro Lungo

Madonna de Idris, Santa Maria de Armenis, San Pietro Barisano: churches carved into rock, frescoed by medieval artists who never left their names, forgotten for centuries and now reopened to visitors. The frescoes have the raw, immediate quality of rural medieval art. Beneath Piazza Vittorio Veneto, the Palombaro Lungo is one of Europe's largest underground cisterns: an enormous cavity carved into tufa, discovered in 1992, that collected rainwater for the city. The guided tour — mandatory, costing just a few euros — is one of the most singular experiences you can have in an Italian historic centre.

How and when to go

February is the ideal month: colder than March but far less crowded than the Easter period, which in Matera already draws throngs. Daytime temperatures hover between 5 and 12 degrees, ideal for walking. From Rome you can arrive in about 4 hours by train to Potenza and then by bus, or by car via the A16 Naples-Bari motorway exiting at Taranto. The most convenient flight is to Bari, from which Matera is about 65 kilometres away. Orecchiette with lamb ragù and Matera IGP bread — the most famous bread in southern Italy — complete the picture of an off-season weekend well worth the trip.