Matera is situated within one of the most enchanting rock landscapes in Italy. It is a hard and intense place that man has inhabited with an ongoing relationship with nature, since the most ancient of times.
To preserve this practice that goes back many millennia the Regional Historical and Natural Archaeological Park of the Rock Churches of Matera has been created, also called the Park of the Murgia Materana. The deep furrows in the rocks here constitute  cliffs, caves and ravines that have been used by man as shelters since prehistoric times. Exceptionally evocative is the Gravina of Matera, a huge limestone valley that stretches for twenty kilometres as far as the town of Montescaglioso.

The part of the Murgia that surrounds Matera is very extensive and the vegetation is mainly Mediterranean scrub. There are many fascinating rock churches, as well as prehistoric villages of the Neolithic era, tuff quarries and farms scattered throughout the territory.

There are about 150 rock churches, all dug into the rock and bearing witness to the peasant religiosity that was once so strong here.

The Park of the Murgia Materana is a paradise not just for those who are attracted to archaeology, art and spirituality, but also for bird-watching enthusiasts since various rare species of bird live and breed within the park, such as the Short-toed Eagle, the Red Kite kite, the Lanner Falcon and the Egyptian vulture. Birds of prey such as the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni), live here alongside humans and they nest under the roofs of the abandoned houses of the Sassi or under the roof tiles of the Benedictine Abbey of Montescaglioso.