An archetypical, labyrinthine, humble and profound city, Matera defies easy interpretations and proudly stands withdrawn from simple categories which impose monumental metaphors or tourist myths; instead, it poses questions on the traces of memory and suggests discovery and loss, emotion and knowledge.

Through its unique urban spaces, this city continuously reminds you of the passage of time, which reveals itself in an endless succession of dwellings, neighbourhoods, churches, squares, and palaces, each from a different time period: a wealth of historical and artistic elements forming an intriguing urban layout.

And so Matera in 1993 was granted the status of UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in 1995 it won the European award for regional and urban planning.

However, the district of Matera is part of a vast area of transition known as the Murgia (the tracks that stretch across it were even used by oriental merchants following the legendary Silk Road). The Murgia is a limestone plateau grooved by deep fractures through which run the streams known as gravine.

Today part of the Murgia is the Archaeological, Historical and Natural Park of the Rock Churches of Matera, established by regional law in 1990. The Park contains substantial traces of fortified palaeolithic villages as well as architectural remains of rural settlements from the same and subsequent periods. It is of great archaeological interest due to the presence of these historical traces, while socio-cultural interests can be satisfied in the study of the rural religious life of the populations that settled there from the palaeolithic period onwards.

Of considerable interest are also the biotypes of the area, the geological, geo-morphological and speleological formations, the waterways and the hydrologic systems connected to them (systems of water collection and cisterns are fascinating).

Moreover a guided visit of this protected area still allows observation of interesting fauna ( such as the colonies of lesser kestrels, or falchi grillai ) and flora ( like the wild orchid of the Murgia) typical of this territory, some of which are close to extinction.