Matera

July 21–22, 2014

I found this absolutely incredible city completely by chance. Of course, cavemen had already found it a million years before me, but that doesn’t take away from my discoverer’s joy in the least.

It had begun to get dark, and I set my GPS to take me to the nearest place larger than a village.

If only there were more happy accidents like this!

Of course, from the modern end, it looks just like any other nondescript provincial Italian town.

But the city has a huge historic part. It’s very well preserved, and the landscape surrounding it has remained untouched since the dawn of time.

Almost all the buildings here are hewn out of the rock.

You can have breakfast in a cave.

Enjoy a lunch with a beautiful view.

And eat dinner in another cave.

A trash can with a dog poop bag dispenser (albeit an empty one).

An ordinary trash can.

This city is unlike anything else.

Obviously, this was all once built by regular people for regular life, but the end result is unbelievably gorgeous.

Shockingly, there were practically no tourists here on a weekend in the middle of the summer. You get the impression that, like me, no one’s ever heard of Matera, and so the thought of visiting has never even crossed their minds. The streets are empty.

Meanwhile, every view here is like an Escher print.

And only the occasional car reminds you that this is not a Medieval illustration.