Left Amalfi in pretty grim weather and headed for the Bascillicata region (around the top of the boot).
These guys can build anywhere – came across this tremendous villa build into the cliff, wedged between 2 rocks. Fantastic views from one side and a hell of a staircase down the other side to their own private rock pool.

Who’d have thought that southern Italy would be so mountainous (and so cold).

We stayed a couple of days at a mountain town called Matera. Amazing.
Built into the cliff and dating back to 17th Century, over 30,000 people lived in houses carved out of the rock or adapted from caves. As late as 1956 15,000 people were forcibly removed by the government (they were considered slums) and rehoused into a new town up on the plain.

There are still 3,000 inhabitants and a number of the buildings have been turned into restaurants, hotels and B&Bs carved out of the rock.

We were fortunate to stay in one, and this is the view from our room of the cliff-top church oposite.
Remarkable.

The same evening, a torch-lit procession was held around the town by members of a number of local churches, culminating in a service at the rock-church. We had front row seats…

The whole town was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the 1990’s. Don’t know about you but we’d never heard of it. Can’t believe more of fuss isn’t made to promote it. It’s marvellous. A couple of the original buildings have been set up as small museums (a church, a typical cave home – that housed parents and an average of 6 kids – the ice storage cellars that kept ice and fresh water till mid summer, etc).

And our room, cut into the hillside, couldn’t have been much better.

However, 2 days constantly up and down steps, and you certainly feel like you earned your dinner!