Matera

Italy

Matera is a 60 000-resident UNESCO World Heritage city in Basilicata built into the limestone ravine of the Gravina river around the Sassi cave dwellings of Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano, inhabited continuously since the Paleolithic and named European Capital of Culture 2019, with the Cattedrale on the highest tufa spur, the Piano upper town around Piazza Vittorio Veneto with the underground Palombaro Lungo cistern, the rupestrian rock churches of Madonna de Idris, Santa Lucia alle Malve and San Pietro Caveoso, the 8 000 hectare Parco della Murgia Materana with 150+ rupestrian chapels and the Belvedere Murgia Timone film panorama (The Passion of the Christ, No Time to Die), the FAL train from Bari Centrale that accepts dogs free of charge, and the Pugliairbus shuttle from Bari BRI airport. Top spots for pets include the UNESCO Sassi cave dwellings of Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano carved into the tufa cliffs above the Gravina ravine, the Belvedere Murgia Timone film panorama across the ravine used in The Passion of the Christ (2004) and No Time to Die (2021), the 8 000 hectare Parco della Murgia Materana with 150+ Byzantine rupestrian rock churches and off-leash hiking, the Piazza Vittorio Veneto with the underground Palombaro Lungo cistern, and the unfinished 16th-century Tramontano castle on the Piano west, especially around the UNESCO Sassi (Sasso Caveoso and Sasso Barisano) on the east flank of the Piano above the Gravina ravine, the Piano upper town around Piazza Vittorio Veneto and Via Lucana, the Parco della Murgia Materana on the opposite plateau across the Gravina, and Matera Centrale FAL station on the south periphery linked to the Piano centre by a 500 m walk via Via Don Luigi Sturzo.