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Caves Counts and Crusades Self Guided Tour of Matera

By Tourific
Free cancellation available
Price is NZ$14 per adult

Features

  • Free cancellation available
  • 3h
  • Mobile voucher
  • Instant confirmation
  • Multiple languages

Overview

Beneath Matera's main piazza lies a sealed underground city — Roman cisterns, a ninth-century church, and a tank that held five million litres of rainwater. This self-guided audio tour of the Sassi di Matera, delivered through an app, takes you past what most visitors never notice.

You'll learn why families paid for better skull placement on a church door, how an assassinated count sparked a city motto about patient revenge, and why Hollywood chose these cave streets over the actual Holy Land. Your guide covers both Sasso districts, the cathedral, and cave homes where families of eleven lived alongside their animals.

Start anytime, pause for photos, go at your pace — no group to follow, no fixed schedule. Works offline in the narrow streets. Over 20,000 travellers trust our self-guided tours, and every booking comes with a full refund guarantee. If you want to understand Matera rather than just photograph it, this Matera walking tour is built for exactly that.

Activity location

  • Piazza Vittorio Veneto
    • Piazza Vittorio Veneto
    • 75100, Matera, Basilicata, Italy

Meeting/Redemption Point

  • Piazza Vittorio Veneto
    • Piazza Vittorio Veneto
    • 75100, Matera, Basilicata, Italy

Check availability

Caves Counts and Crusades Self Guided Tour of Matera in Multilingual
  • Activity duration is 3 hours3h
    3h
  • Opening hours: Mon 8:30 am-6:30 pm
  • English
Price details
NZ$13.72 x 1 AdultNZ$13.72
Total
Price is NZ$13.72

What's included, what's not

  • What's includedWhat's included
    100% Satisfaction Guarantee: If you don’t love the tour, write to us for a full refund.
  • What's includedWhat's included
    1-year access to audio on iOS & Android. Listen to the tour anytime, as many times as you like
  • What's includedWhat's included
    Audio and written guide included
  • What's includedWhat's included
    Offline access to the tour (no internet connection needed) once tour is downloaded
  • What's includedWhat's included
    Images to identify stops and in app interactive map for navigation
  • What's excludedWhat's excluded
    Any physical devices or headphones
  • What's excludedWhat's excluded
    Human tour guide at location

Know before you book

  • Service animals allowed
  • Public transport options are available nearby
  • Suitable for all physical fitness levels

Activity itinerary

Piazza Vittorio Veneto (Pass by)

Walk across a perfectly ordinary square hiding five thousand square metres of sealed chambers beneath your feet.

Palombaro Lungo (Pass by)

Descend into a cistern that held enough rainwater to fill two Olympic swimming pools — and find the lost buckets on its floor.

Belvedere Luigi Guerricchio (Pass by)

Pause where a Bourbon fountain once turned the daily water queue into the city's main social event.

Chiesa del Purgatorio (Pass by)

Count the thirty-six skulls on the door and notice which families paid for a higher spot.

Chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi (Pass by)

Step through a trapdoor into an underground church that links a fresco of a medieval pope to the First Crusade.

Piazza del Sedile (Pass by)

Stand near the boulder where conspirators hid before ambushing the count who taxed a city to build his own castle.

Basilica Cattedrale di Matera "Maria Santissima della Bruna" (Pass by)

Watch the Wheel of Fortune carved into stone, then hear why a crowd tears apart a handmade cart here every July.

Casa Noha (Pass by)

See a noble house stripped bare and turned into a screen that projects the storey Matera spent decades trying to forget.

La Fontana Dell'amore "amarsi Nei Sassi" (Pass by)

Linger at the fountain where young men once waited for the only chance they'd get to speak to the women they admired.

Piazza San Pietro Caveoso (Pass by)

Recognise the piazza where Pasolini found a more convincing Jerusalem than Jerusalem itself.

Church of Santa Maria de Idris (Pass by)

Crawl the same floor where penitents once dragged their tongues across ceramic bricks to beg the Virgin for water.

San Giovanni in Monterrone (Pass by)

Spot the bilingual fresco where Christ blesses in two languages — and ask why neither tradition won.

Piazzetta Pascoli (Pass by)

End where a poet who once called Matera miserable later confessed it was the city that smiled at him most.

Location

Activity location

  • LOB_ACTIVITIESLOB_ACTIVITIES
    Piazza Vittorio Veneto
    • Piazza Vittorio Veneto
    • 75100, Matera, Basilicata, Italy

Meeting/Redemption Point

  • PEOPLEPEOPLE
    Piazza Vittorio Veneto
    • Piazza Vittorio Veneto
    • 75100, Matera, Basilicata, Italy

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