Sassi of Matera tour: frescoed church and cave house

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Free cancellationExcellent quality

1/48

Duration2h

GroupUp to 25

LanguagesIT

Mobile ticketAccepted

Two hours through the Sassi: a rock church, a canyon view, and the inside of an ancient cave home

A 2-hour guided tour of Matera's Sassi district with an authorized guide covers Sasso Caveoso, Sasso Barisano, the frescoed Madonna delle Grazie church, and Casa Grotta del Casalnuovo, a furnished cave house. The guide leads you through UNESCO-listed streets, explains the baroque and fresco details inside the church, and shows the original rooms and everyday objects that families used before the Sassi were depopulated in the late 1950s.

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore Matera's Sassi and historic sites

Visit Sasso Barisano and Cathedral facade
Admire Gravina canyon in Sasso Caveoso
Tour Madonna delle Grazie church interior
Explore Casa Grotta del Casalnuovo house

The Experience

Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano make up the heart of Matera's Sassi, the ancient districts carved into limestone that UNESCO recognized as a World Heritage Site in 1993. The guide walks you through the renovated streets and points out the Cathedral's Apulian Romanesque facade, built in 1270, so you understand the scale and age of what surrounds you. From the heart of Sasso Caveoso, you also stand at the Gravina canyon—a drop of stone and history that frames the whole district.

Inside the Madonna delle Grazie, a rock church on via del Sasso Caveoso, you see what remains of centuries of worship. The church was originally dedicated to Sant'Eustachio in the 1540s; now a baroque altar sits near the original iconostasis, and the ceiling holds two sculpted domes. On the walls are frescoes—Christ flanked by angels with the Mother and John below, Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, and Saint Lucia painted in the apse. A terracotta bas-relief of the Madonna and Child frames the bell-tower entrance. The guide explains what you are looking at instead of leaving the details silent.

Casa Grotta del Casalnuovo, the furnished cave house at the end of the tour, is where the Sassi become real. You walk through the original rooms as they stood before families left in the late 1950s—the beds, the kitchen tools, the objects of daily work and common use that show how people actually lived inside the stone. It is a small ethnographic collection, not a ruin, and the difference matters: you see a home, not a shell.

What’s included

Entrance to the Madonna delle Grazie frescoed rock church.
access to Casa Grotta del Casalnuovo with its original furnishings and everyday objects.
authorized guide in Italian for the full 2 hours through both Sassi districts.

Good to know

Easy physical levelPets welcomePublic transport nearbyInfants must sit on laps

Operated by LUCA PRISCO GUIDA TURISTICA MATERA

Is this one for you?You walk the whole route with a guide who knows the Sassi—the streets, the church details, the canyon, and the story of the cave house—so you understand what you are standing in instead of reading a map alone. Choose this if you want the history explained and the spaces opened up by someone who lives there.