Once known for their squalid living conditions, the prehistoric limestone warrens have been repurposed as lodgings, bars, and artist workshops. Would staying there feel extraordinary or tasteless?

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning writer/podcaster, I've been to 100+ countries. Matera, in the southern Italian region of Basilicata, has been ...

IT was early evening in Matera, a city in the southern Italian region of Basilicata, and swallows circled the sky, their melodious calls interrupted only by the clanking of bells worn by cows drinking ...

The Italian city of Matera is one of those places that makes you appreciate human resilience and creativity. For millennia—up until the 1950s!—families lived, with a few modern comforts by the end (at ...

Once the “shame of Italy,” the ancient warren of natural caves in Matera may be Europe’s most dramatic story of rebirth Tony Perrottet Contributing writer Matera’s paleolithic past has made it a ...

A view of the Sassi di Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993. Paul Jebara It’s hard to believe that a little more than 50 years ago, Matera was the “shame of Italy,” its cave-dwelling ...