San Pietro Caveoso

San Pietro Caveoso tickets: which one to buy

San Pietro Caveoso sits on the lip of the gorge in the lower of Matera's two old quarters, on a small terrace with the ravine dropping away behind it, and it is one of the buildings every photograph of the city includes. Entry is on the combined rock-church ticket, and the church is a natural starting point because the terrace outside is where most walking tours of the Sassi begin.

Guides here are cheap and useful, and the routes down into the gorge or across to the caves on the far side need one unless you are confident with rough paths. The rock church on the spur immediately above, reached by a stair, is usually sold with this one. Opening hours shorten in winter and there is a midday closure. Cars cannot reach the terrace, so everything here is on foot. Steps down to the church are uneven and there is no vehicle access for anyone with limited mobility.

Visiting San Pietro Caveoso: what to see

This is the only church in the Sassi that was built rather than carved, which in Matera makes it the exception. It was founded in the thirteenth century and given a baroque front and bell tower later, and it stands on a shelf of rock with the ravine directly behind, so that from the opposite side of the gorge the building appears to hang over the drop. Inside it is a broad three-aisled church with a painted wooden ceiling of the seventeenth century and a series of side chapels holding local devotional images.

The contrast with the rock churches nearby is the instructive part: here is what the town built when it had money and wanted to look like everywhere else, a few steps from chapels hollowed out of the hillside. The terrace outside is a public space and one of the best viewpoints over the Murgia plateau and its cave settlements. Fragments of fresco survive in the apse, the only medieval painting in a built church anywhere in the Sassi.

San Pietro Caveoso opening hours and the best time to go

Late afternoon and the hour after sunset are the times to be on this terrace, when the light crosses the gorge and the caves opposite catch it. Morning is better for going inside. Matera is hot and exposed in July and August and the walking involved in any visit is considerable; spring and autumn are right. The church is used by the parish and closes for services. In winter the wind comes straight up the ravine and the terrace is cold.

Christmas brings the living nativity through the Sassi, and this quarter is at the centre of it. The path down into the gorge starts a few metres away and leads to the rock churches on the far side, which take half a day and proper footwear. Twenty minutes inside the church is enough. A small cafe on the terrace serves drinks until late and is the easiest place to wait for the light.