Matera may be isolated and difficult to reach yet a trip to this cave city is well worth the effort. Not only is Matera a World Heritage Site, it is one of Italy's most dramatic destinations. View cave dwellings inhabited since the Paleolithic. Learn about life in a one-room grotto. Tour rock-hewn or rupestrian churches. Hike up and down a hobbit-like hill. And while Matera is best known for its sassi or stones, the surrounding plateaus are of equal appeal. The rock paintings found at the Crypt of Original Sin are on a par with the Sistine Chapel. Grotta dei Pipistrelli, Bat Grotto in English, boasts traces of human habitation 40,000 years ancient. The Park of the Rupestrian Churches, on the far side of the ravine, offers more than a belvedere. It is a great place to hike, mountain bike and bird - albeit with a guide.