Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario

The answer to how people lived in the Sassi: a single cave, partly dug out and partly built, where the whole family slept, ate and worked alongside their animals. The Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario is furnished as in the first half of the 20th century and is toured in half an hour, with explanations in eleven languages.

What you see

The house is a single room. The furniture acts as walls: on one side, the hearth and kitchen; in the centre, a small table with a single big dish from which everyone ate; at the back, the high bed on two iron trestles, with boards and a mattress stuffed with maize leaves. Opposite the bed, the mule's manger. Behind a partition, a second stable with another manger, the hollow from which the stone was quarried and a circular pit for manure or straw. In the floor, the channel that carried rainwater to the cistern.

The ticket includes other spaces next to the house: the Neviera, the pit where pressed snow was stored to preserve food in summer; a natural cave, and the rock church of Sant'Agostino al Casalnuovo.

Why it matters

The families of the Sassi lived like this until the 1950s, when a law of 1952 moved them to new districts of the upper town. Seeing the mule's manger a couple of steps from the bed, with no natural light or running water, explains better than any text why the State emptied the Sassi and how they later became a World Heritage Site. It is the visit that gives meaning to the rest of the walk through the Sassi.

Opening hours

• January to March and October to December: Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 18:00; Saturdays and Sundays until 19:00.
• April to June and September: Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 19:00; weekends until 20:00.
• July and August: every day from 9:00 to 20:30.

Last entry is 20 minutes before closing. Special hours on 2 July, the feast of the Madonna della Bruna, and on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Outside opening hours the visit can be arranged by giving one working day's notice.

Tickets

Fares in force since 4 April 2026:

• Adults: €8.
• Reduced: €5 for over-65s, university students, FAI members and groups with an authorised guide.
• Ages 11 to 18 and schoolchildren: €3.
• Children up to age 10: free, as are people with disabilities and residents of Matera.

No reservation is needed: you buy at the entrance. The explanation is in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Polish, Portuguese and Matera dialect.

Getting there

It is on Vico Solitario, in the Sasso Caveoso, next to Piazza San Pietro Caveoso. You get there on foot, going down through the Sassi from the upper town; the Sassi are a limited traffic zone and you cannot enter by car. From Piazza Vittorio Veneto you go down stairs through the Caveoso.

Do not confuse it with the cave house on Via Fiorentini, in the Barisano, which is another visit on the Oltre l'Arte circuit.

With children and accessibility

Children are surprised: the manger beside the bed, the single dish on the table, the kitchen in a corner. The visit is short, matched to their attention. The surrounding streets are stairs: come with a baby carrier, not a pushchair.

Combine it with Santa Maria de Idris and the rock churches, a few minutes away, and if you want to sleep nearby, the Sant'Angelo Luxury Resort is in the same Piazza San Pietro Caveoso.