Puglia 4

Our most favorite location during our recent visit to southern Italy was the ancient cave city  of Matera . This world heritage, UNESCO-listed , site is a gorge filled with ancient cave dwellings known as Sassi. The Sassi are houses dug into the rock itself. The ancient town grew up on one slope of the ravine created by a river that is now a small stream. The ravine is known locally as “la Gravina”.

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This ancient city is the only place in the world where people can boast to be still living in the same houses of their ancestors of 9,000 years ago.

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The 13th century Cathedral  is at the highest point in the city where construction began in the year 1203 AD.

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The The Palazzo del Sedile …

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Matera has been used as the backdrop in many Christian-themed films, including The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964), King David (Bruce Beresford, 1985), The Passion of the Christ  (Mel Gibson, 2004), The Nativity Story (Catherine Hardwicke, 2006) and Ben-Hur  (Timur Bekmambetov, 2016).

Enjoy life!