It’s been a long time coming.

It was May of 2004 when I came across a newsletter article about a very special town in Italy called Matera. The moment I read the headline, “Matera May Be Italy’s Best-Kept Secret”, I was hooked! I committed the article to memory and knew that one day I would get there.

Today was the day!

Flash forward ten years, and here I am.  My WOW! Travel Club group and I are traveling in Italy and have just spent three nights and two fabulously sunny days in Sorrento, exploring Capri, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast. Today we’d be heading to Matera.  Remembering the article all those years ago, I wondered if Matera would still stack up.  Was this a passing fad?  Had it become so popular as to have lost the charm that originally drew me in?  I would soon find out.

Counting a couple of bathroom breaks and a construction detour, it was nearly a 5-hour drive from Sorrento. In bus terms, that’s about ten days!  A long time to riding in a bus, but my affable group of “wowees” were good sports and there wasn’t a whine to be heard. We enjoyed the beautiful landscape of the Campagnia Region – green and mountainous, with many ancient hilltop villages. Crossing the Apennine Mountain Range that runs like a spine through the middle of the boot of Italy, we remarked how drastically the landscape changed, from green to brown, arid and scrubby.  This region, Basilicata, is the poorest region in Italy.  No surprise if the topography was any indication.

Matera, in the heart of Italy (towards the south) is a hidden treasure!

Basilicata’s only significant visitor attraction is Matera, which has become relatively famous for its “sassi” houses.  In fact, most Americans have never heard of Matera.  There were many audible “wows” when we reached the old part of town, with its picturesque cave houses dating back, literally, to prehistoric times. Here were some of the first human settlements in Italy.

Matera is the only place in the world where people can claim to be living in the same house as their ancestors of 9,000 years ago!

Stopping to explore the town, we enjoyed a simple, hearty and delicious lunch at Nadi Restaurant, a little café carved into the tufa rock. The traditional soup (zuppa), which we devoured,  included several kinds of beans plus barley.  Accompanied by a glass (or two) of the delicious house red wine and a hearty helping of local bread, it was a feast!  But the real highlight was the bathrooms, which featured hand-painted tiles on the doors of the toilets.

Love these whimsical hand-painted tiles on the doors of the ladies’ and gents’ toilets!

After lunch, we carefully descended and ascended and descended ancient stairs worn smooth and slippery from centuries of use. We took hundreds of photos with nary a tourist in sight – the benefit of traveling at the tail end of the season – and the weather could not have been more perfect!

From our excellent tour guide, Ana, we learned that until the 1950s, hundreds of peasant families lived here in squalor, without electricity, running water or sewage systems. Some shared their sassi dwellings with sheep, goats and chickens. Malaria was rampant. Matera had come to be a national scandal for the post-war government of Italy. In 1952, they forcefully relocated most of the population to a newer part of the city and much of the ancient sassi was abandoned for decades.

Forty years later, in 1993, Matera was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, and continues to attract attention from wealthy developers and residents who are renovating the sassi and converting them to restaurants, cafés, boutiques and bed-and-breakfast lodging. For just 149,000 Euros (a little over $200,000) you can own a 750-sq ft “fixer-upper” apartment in the heart of town!

Or, for a fraction of the cost, you can join the WOW! Travel Club’s next journey to Italy in 2014, enjoy a magical afternoon in Matera and then check into an amazing lodging experience, as we have just done.  Just wait ’till I tell you about it in next week’s blog post.  You’ll lose your mind!   Ciao for now!