Basilicata trip planner

A travel guide to the Southern Italian region of Basilicata

Matera: The Cave City - The city of Matera was for decades a virtual ghost town known as La Città Fantasma, "The Phantom City." Matera's ancient cave-homes were carved into two parallel hanging valleys—ravines notched into a clifftop and feeding into a much deeper gorge, the 415-foot deep Gravina di Matera. By the middle of the twentieth century, these two crowded valleys—known as i sassi ("the rocks")—were home to 15,000 Materani who lived nearly prehistoric lives, lacking even the most basic modern services like electricity and running water... » more

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• Matera - The cave-city

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