Matera - Gorge

Hikers that have visited Matera and watched over the gorge must have had the urge to hike through it to the other side.

There are plenty of tracks visible, but many have dead-ends as I found out the hard way. After trying different tracks, I found a nice track that will bring you down, up around the caves at the top and back down to gorge to make you way finally back up to the parking.

I would recommend to follow the track as uploaded: From the parking, take the assent down to the bottom of the gorge. There is really only one track on the Matera side so you will also take this track again up.

Once you are at the bottom of the gorge, follow the track on the north side of the gorge. It's pretty steep, but going up it will provide you with plenty of good visible steps to make your way up. Just take it easy and frequently stop to enjoy the scenery. Once you're about half way, it will get less steep and the track will curve a bit around the mountain until you make it to the top.

As the mountain is pretty plat at the top, once you're up, it will be very easy to walk around, take pictures and enjoy the view towards the town. You may want to walk around a bit here to explore the sites.

Once you get to the most southern point of the track, you will find some steps with a metal handlebar to go down. If you want to explore some more, you may opt to walk further on the south side the mountain just below the top to see some more caves as well as a small cave-church.

The assent back down starts from the mentioned steps with metal handlebar. This track is much longer than the way up, but has a much more gentle slope to spare your knees a bit. Before you make the first zig, you will pass by a few of the largest caves which are worth to have a look at. Just watch out for the electrical cable. Not sure if the wires are still "hot" but better safe than sorry.

The rest of the track is fairly easy, just zig-zag down back to the river, cross the river and make it back to the point at the bottom of the gorge where you were before to make your final ascent back to the parking.

Please note that you will most likely have a bad GPS reception inside the gorge so you may not be able to rely that much on your GPS. I had that problem as well so I draw most of this track in Google Earth, rather than using my GPS data. I would therefore highly recommend to look at the included picture of the track displayed on Google Earth and orient yourself at the parking before you take off so you will have a better understanding what track to follow and which one to ignore.

Please enjoy the track. Also note that it is not a very long track so no need to rush so take your time and take in the scenery.