Excursions in the Matera
Rock Church Park
are particularly
charming and promise to reveal many
natural and unexpected historical treasures. Here you’ll
find crude and barren rocks with low-lying vegetation and
scrub; deep and winding ravines that swallow-up those who
venture into them; over 150 rock cliff churches that give
testimony to the diffusion of religion in the countryside;
numerous settlements dating back from the Palaeolithic (e.g
the “Grotta dei Pipistrelli” or “Cave
of Bats”)
Diana
Bellavista and the Neolithic eras,
with village ruins and artefacts (like the ceramics of Diana
Bellavista and Serra d’Alto); and finally all the
impressions left by a civilization which had to cope with
a land that was uncongenial to human survival: the ways
in which the limestone rock was used shows the passage from
novel and rupestrian ways to constructed structures such
as the fortified farms. The park covers an area of more
than 8,000 hectares from the towns of Matera to Montescaglioso.
