PRIVATE TOUR TO SASSI OF MATERA

Pick up at your hotel is 7:30am and we start to drive south on the new highway called A2 that connects Naples to Reggio, after 50 km we leave this highway to take the road SS407 that crosses the Apennine mountains brings us to Basilicata. After passing the town of Potenza the SS407 begins to descend towards the Ionic sea and we leave this main road 30 Km before we get to the coast. We start to drive up again for 10 more Km until we get in the city of Matera. We arrive in Piazza Pascoli where you can enjoy a breathtaking view of Rione Sassi, this is also the meeting point with our private guide.

The Rione Sassi is nothing more then an entire district of homes, Churches, narrow alleys, and stairways. The facade of the homes were built of stones but inside they are simple caves carved into the natural rock where large families lived alongside their livestock (pigs, chickens, goats and the mule) until 1952 and without electricity, running water or sewage. In such unhygienic conditions disease was rife, according to the statistics, after the II WW the infant mortality rate reached a catastrophic proportion, out of 1000 children born, 460 were born dead.

In 1948 one of the most famous Italian writer Carlo Levi visiting the Region of Basilicata arrived in the city of Matera and could not believe his eyes when he saw the living conditions of the local inhabitants. Shocked by what he saw, he immediately denounced this terrible situation on the national newspapers using the expression "national shame". Subsequently, the Prime Minister of the new Republic of Italy Alcide De Gasperi visited Matera to ascertain in person what was previously reported, then immediately he commissioned the Minister of the public works to study and project a solution for the Sassi problem.

In may 1952 the new homes were ready and most of the inhabitants of Sassi (about 20000 people) were forced to move into the new districts and little by little the Sassi area was totally abounded.

After the abandonment The Sassi begin decades of degradation in the complete and shameful absence of political interventions, both local and national to protect this immense heritage.

The new generations did not know Sassi, and even if in theory they were the historical center of the city, almost all the people never went there.

After many years of a long restoration and redevelopment works, Sassi district begin to live again and since 1993 have been included by UNESCO in the list of World Heritage Sites.

They were the first place in the world to be declared a "cultural landscape" and the role model they can play in showing how to live in balance with the environment, exploiting its resources but integrating with it, without distorting it, was recognized.

After the two hours tour of Sassi you can have lunch in a local restaurant before returning to your location