Sextiento, Cave Hotel - Matera

Amongst a labyrinth of cave Homes carved into a steep hillside in Italy, we find Sextiento Le Grotto della Civita. Here, these cave dwellings are historically preserved and artfully converted into a luxurious hotel.

For ages lost to time, Matera’s population carved out homes from the high plateau’s limestone. These cave dwellings called Sassi, were some of the world’s oldest continuously populated homes.

The Sassi formed a tight communal web and formed a unique micro-culture that captures the imagination and gives Matera its mystique. Local grandparents still remember growing up in the Sassi and their stories paint a vibrant picture of a lost world. The now empty cave homes and maze of paths that connect them still emanate with the memories of several millennia.

Sextiento Le Grotto della Civita’s concept carefully preserves several of these cave homes and is expanding to save more. Each is converted artfully into comfortable rooms with modern plumbing, electricity, and even tastefully incorporated amenities like a luxuriously large bath set into the original stone as it was carved out ages ago.

In keeping with Unesco standards Sextiento has been able to retain and preserve the Sassi way of life, giving us the opportunity to experience this incredible place up close and to see echos of the way that locals lived for thousands of years.

There is a naturalness to the caves, which remain so well preserved that we were immediately immersed in their mysterious past and captured by the storied, magical setting, overlooking the gorge below.

Sextiento hosts a restaurant in a larger cave that was once a church, and breakfast can be enjoyed on the stone terrace with a sunrise view of Matera’s walls and facing hills, also riddled with ancient cave homes.

The Sassi were continually inhabited from the stoneage until quite recently. Modern inhabitants of these generational cave homes were forced to relocate in the 1950’5 when the government came under pressure to address serious sanitation and overcrowding concerns.

In the Sassi, families lived many to a room with animals brought inside at night, making for cramped conditions that tempted the spread of disease.

While there were downsides to this kind of living, it also created vibrant tight-knit communities around close family structures. The challenges of this rough lifestyle carved out of the hill resulted in a highly adapted way of life, and an incredible cultural wealth.

The sunrise hits Sextiento directly, lighting up the caves along the ridge with a rose glow as the cool of the night dissipates into the baking Southern Italian summer.

When they were re-housed, many Sassi inhabitants grieved the loss of what had been a tremendously supportive community and generations of tradition. Menial tasks that had, in the past, required teamwork and a tapestry of social contribution to accomplish were now easily replaced by technology like washing machines and electric stoves. The tight ties that held people together loosened and dissolved.

This change was so very unpopular that many in the community protested and some attempted to re-inhabit their family homes, but over time modernization won out and the Sassi became a ghost town just under the Old Center of Matera’s scenic hilltop perch.

For a time the Sassi were abandoned to the weather, tempting hooligans and vagrants, so the city filled some in and boarded others up which resulted in further outcry that Matera’s rich history was being erased. Finally, some concerted effort was made to preserve and restore the Sassi. While the law prohibited the caves from being used as permanent housing, they could be adapted into hotels, restaurants, and shops.

Now the Sassi inhabitants’ grandchildren host tourists in caves such as Sextiento Le Grotto della Civita’s that have been preserved and converted, bringing these historic spaces back into Matera’s economy and giving visitors a glimpse of the life their ancestors lived until very recently. The staff at Sextiento were local and incredibly knowledgeable about the cave’s history and previous use and shared stories from their own grandparent’s experiences with us.

While Matera is a city unlike any other, it reminds me most of Cappadocia, there like here, homes and entire neighborhoods had been carved directly from the rock for millennia. In the evening both take on an almost haunting fairytale glow as if the ghost lights of many ages can still be felt if not seen.

Sextiento Le Grotto della Civita is a unique and unforgettable way to experience Matera. Book your own Sassi stay and check out their website HERE.