A set of images from Matera and the surrounding area. Matera is a unique city in southern Italy set on the edge of a deep gorge that cuts in to soft limestone in which there are many caves both natural and excavated. The unique setting, architecture and long history, with continuous settlement dating back to the Paleolithic have earned the city UNESCO World Heritage status.

Path Along Cliff

Much of the modern part of the city is familiar territory to anyone used to exploring Italy, with its mix of chaotic, dense construction and the ever present Catholic influence.

Much of the town is difficult to access, with steep and narrow streets, most of which are not accessible by car. As a result, there are few local inhabitants here in the old areas, which have instead become dominated by tourism and small clusters of houses that now double as distributed hotels.

And as soon as you move away from anywhere that requires any effort to reach, much of the town is abandoned.

In the town, the majority of publicly accessible caves have been converted in to museums and tourist traps. However, if walk down a steep path, cross the river Gravina via a rope bridge, and then up on the far side you will find caves carved in to the rock that were until recently still used for food storage and animal shelter – the reasons why this has for so long been an important and prosperous settlement.

The caves here have served many purposes, as shelters for people and animals to stay, long term storage for crops and food, and – unsurprisingly given that this is Italy – churches. We also found a water cistern, with channels cut in the side of the gorge to collect rainfall.

These usage patterns are not unique to the city of Matera itself, but are also found in the surrounding areas. We visited one less frequented site outside the city which was used as recently as the 1950s as part of a farm, with the same pattern of humans, animals, storage and, of course, churches. This perhaps gives a clearer sense of what the city of Matera developed from.

All told, this was a nice escape for a few days away from Barcelona, despite the rain. Like Barcelona, Matera suffers from an excessive of tourism and is now becoming more a theme park than an actively inhabited city. But for those willing to take the time to explore more than a few 10s of metres away from the main tourist streets, there is a lot to discover.

All photographs were taken with a small portable camera, all bar one of which were cropped to a 30mm equivalent 4/3 frame. A polarising filter helped make the most of the unsettlingly damp weather by reducing glare from the wet foliage.