Ancient Matera, Italy
This is Matera. A maze of unpainted stone, caves, and churches perched at the edge of a deep canyon. My first impression was that we had been transported out of Italy and into some ancient middle eastern city. That feeling is brought on by so much raw stonework with chisel marks still visible where they had been hand carved out of the nearby quarry. The uniformity of so much blank rock also has its own beauty which is best taken in from the far side of the gorge looking back towards Matera. From the distance the rock seems to blend into one jumbled puzzle with only the gaping openings of the caves looking back at you like vacant pockets in a bee hive. All of this is dominated by a single prominent church tower. This imagery has not been lost on filmmakers, who have used Matera as a stand-in for Jerusalem. Recent movies have been the remade Ben-Hur and The Passion of the Christ. Matera itself has leapt on board with this portrayal and frequent re-enactments of the cruci...