Basilicata, Italy

Sextantio le Grotte della Civita

Price per night from$148.20

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR136.36), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Boutique Bedrock

Setting

Matera’s grand canyon

Sextantio le Grotte della Civita’s caves have a prehistoric birthday and a Unesco World Heritage setting; they’re also breathtakingly romantic. It took 10 years to turn the sassi (stone settlement) into boutique bedrooms, but the resulting hotel is true to the caves’ tufa-rock roots: simply furnished, candlelit and calming.

Smith Extra

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A bottle of local wine

Facilities

Photos Sextantio le Grotte della Civita facilities

Need to know

Rooms

18, including six suites.

Check–Out

Noon. Earliest check-in, 2pm, but let the hotel know in advance what time you're likely to arrive.

Prices

Double rooms from £128.18 (€150), including tax at 10 per cent.

More details

Rates include breakfast (a princely spread of local produce, Rates include yoghurt, mozzarella, bread, fruit and cakes) .

Also

Expect a refreshing arrival: a plate of fresh fruit and a jug of chilled water are left in rooms for guests. Be pampered with an in-room massage.

At the hotel

Free WiFi in reception, communal areas and rooms on the first level. In rooms: natural, locally made bath products, candles and antique linens; some have sleek freestanding bath tubs.

Our favourite rooms

Suite 13 is ravishingly romantic – the honey-coloured cave has its own balcony, plenty of candlelit alcoves, and a fireplace beside the bath tub. Suite 4 or 8 are fit for families, with plenty of space. Some of the superior rooms come with both a bath tub and shower.

Packing tips

Bring flat sandals and loose linens for exploring Matera; an erudite tome for quiet moments and a notebook to jot down chef Elisabetta’s pannacotta recipe.

Pet‐friendly

Dogs and cats are welcome for no extra charge. Just let the hotel know when booking. See more pet-friendly hotels in Basilicata.

Children

Smith Junior is welcome, with cots for children under six (€15 a day) and beds for older children (€75 a day).

Sustainability efforts

Food is organic, seasonal and locally sourced, the caves’ reinvention relied on traditional methods, materials and craftsmen and staff are involved in conservation projects.

Food and Drink

Photos Sextantio le Grotte della Civita food and drink

Top Table

Sit in one of the corner nooks carved into the stone walls and gaze only at each other.

Dress Code

Jesuit chic or Italian widow: a white smock or black lace with leather sandals.

Hotel restaurant

The Tasting Room, set in an ancient church hewn into the rock, is a hard-to-beat setting for a meal. In keeping with the hotel’s philosophy, frills and furniture are minimal (the latter being of the antique, liquorice-brown wood variety), food is traditional and local, and service is fuss-free. By night, flickering candlelight lends a romantic glow to the clutch of tables. The chef is a culinary star, using local ingredients and traditional methods: melon with parma ham, grilled aubergine and courgette, cured meats and bruschetta are just a few of her signature treats.

Hotel bar

No bar, but you can linger in the breakfast room ( housed in an 18th-century rock-hewn church) with a glass or two of local wine.

Last orders

Breakfast is from 7.30am–10.30am, lunch and dinner are only available as an intimate private-dining experience and must be booked in advance.

Room service

In-room breakfast is available from 8am (for an extra €20), and drinks and aperitifs are available round the clock.

Location

Photos Sextantio le Grotte della Civita location
Address
Sextantio le Grotte della Civita
Via Madonna delle Virtù (Sasso Barisano)
Matera
75100
Italy

Planes

Bari Palese airport is served by BA (www.britishairways.com) and Ryanair (www.ryanair.com), and is 50 minutes’ drive from the hotel.

Trains

Matera is the nearest station, a five-minute drive away. Trains to and from Bari stop here (www.fal-srl.it).

Automobiles

It takes 50 minutes to get to Bari by car; if using SatNav, enter Via Madonna Delle Virtu to get to the hotel. Unload your luggage at the foot of the staircase leading up to the hotel before the valet whisks your car away to an affiliated secure garage nearby (for €25 a night). You can also self-park in the free stalls just outside the restricted-traffic Sassi area.

Worth getting out of bed for

Do your homework with a guided tour of the sassi. Stop-offs include a typical cave dwelling decorated with traditional furnishings, the church of Saint Peter Caveoso, the cave church of Saint Lucy of the Malve (check out the frescoes) and the museum of farming history. Be sure to wander around Matera sans guide too, to find your own favourites: little cafés, sweet boutiques (crunch on Conti Confetteria’s rainbow-hued sugared almonds at Piazza del Sedile) and pretty squares populated with gossiping old men. Head to the hills for the ‘Flight of the Angels’ – the world’s fastest zipwire. Thrill-seekers are suspended from a wire and launched like human rockets from the peaks of Castelmezzano, in the Gallipoli Cognato National Park, across to the village of Pietrapertosa, at 120kmph. For a more sedate experience, pack a picnic and head to Alta Murgia National Park and nature reserve. There are cave church complexes to explore, plenty of beautiful blossoms and birds, and it’s ideal for mountain biking and hiking.

Local restaurants

Hotel Palazzo Gattini at 14 Piazza Duomo has an enticing restaurant, Le Bubbole. Expect seasonal produce, including toothsome cheese and fish dishes and a well-stocked wine cellar that makes sore heads likely. The pretty gingham tables at La Talpa provide a romantic setting for the restaurant’s traditional treats. Ingredients are sourced each morning from the local countryside, so food is as fresh as it’s flavoursome – cavatelli with chickpea puree, porcini mushrooms, rocket and tomatoes is a typically tasty example. The restaurant is close to the hotel, at 167 via Fiorentini.

Local cafés

Head to Piazza del Sedile and choose from one of the little cafés. Sit outside and sip an espresso – if you’re lucky you’ll hear opera students from the local music school practising above. Sweet tooths should visit Caffé Tripoli at 35 via Garibaldi (+39 (0)8 0480 5260) in Martini Franca. Try lemon granita, cherry and cream bocconotti (a cake made with ground almonds and sweet pasta) or a chilled espressino.

Local bars

Of Matera's wine bars, the best loved is Enoteca Dai Tosi, a stylishly updated sasso with a 250-bottle-strong cellar.

Reviews

Photos Sextantio le Grotte della Civita reviews
Michelle Ogundehin

Anonymous review

By Michelle Ogundehin, Decor doyenne

When I tell my beloved that we’re going to stay in a grotto for the weekend, he is less than thrilled. Not just any grotto I enthuse, a super deluxe made into a glorious hotel kind of grotto. ‘Isn’t grotto just another word for cave?’ grumbles my reluctant troglodyte. I deflect the question by suggesting all sorts of naughty Neanderthal-worthy games suitable for playing in a ‘cave’; he brightens considerably. Thus, a few days later, we land at Bari airport, collect our car and we're soon speeding towards Basilicata, the region just above the arch of Italy's foot, and the rocky, hilly neighbour to Puglia, the country's heel.

Declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1993, the centre of Basilicata is Matera, one of the oldest towns in the world, inhabited since the Neolithic age. The particular area of the Southern Italian town we’re going to is known as the Sassi, a series of dwellings cut into the local tufa rock that rises above the Murgia plateau overlooking La Gravina gorge. The roads are narrow and signposts are few as we zip along past buff- and honey-coloured hillside houses.

A bit more zipping back and forth and we admit we have absolutely no idea where the hotel is. Enquiries elicit enthusiastic pointing in the direction we’ve just come. Unfortunately this charade is repeated several times up and down the same road until finally a young waiter takes pity on us and walks us to the foot of a broad flight of wonky paved steps. No sign. No indication of hotel-ness, but he assures us this is the way. A shortish climb later we chance upon a rickety gate, which opens onto a large courtyard. The heady scent of citronella wafts to greet us and we have found Le Grotte delle Civita.

Walking into the reception is instantly soothing. Once accustomed to the sultry glow of candlelight after the glare of the sun outside, we realise that we’re standing inside a lofty-domed structure hewn from the surrounding rock. The effect is that of being enveloped in a capsule of calm. Classical music ripples over us and we’re presented with a hefty metal key. No impersonal magnetic swipe cards here then.

Our room is immense. Apparently it used to be part of a church. Certainly its soaring six-metre high, pock-marked stone ceilings suggests this is so. The receptionist, now doubling as chambermaid, busies about lighting huge pillar candles in every corner and our luxurious cavern gradually comes into focus. The bed, all draped in indulgent layers of lush natural linens that tumble extravagantly to the floor on one side, and an extremely modern scoop of a bath on the other. Beautiful pieces of aged wooden furniture, chests and benches are dotted around, and the overall aesthetic is authentic rustic natural.

As a self-confessed style absolutist, I happily concede, this is less cave than soothing sanctuary. We even have our own dining table, set with water carafe, pretty glasses and a bowl of fresh, fat cherries. We order a bottle of wine and get settled. Moments later we’re sat outside on our terrace and with swifts and kestrels wheeling silently overhead and to the sound of distant goat bells, we sit back and savour an impromptu welcoming feast of bruschetta, olives and cheese. Watching the blush of early evening sunlight bounce off the hills opposite, it all tastes like nectar, even the somewhat fierce local red wine.

Eventually the compulsion to explore overtakes us and because there’s no bar or lounge in the hotel, we amble off to see what gives beyond our enclave. The choice of direction is straightforward, left or right. Matera is seemingly composed of one main road along which all things must pass. It spirals the city winding up towards a tottering church at its peak, from which the houses, like roughly carved building blocks, tumble down. The effect is that of a cubist painting in shades of taupe, sand and khaki.

An authentic local trattoria is what we’re after and it’s not hard to find. Friendly and unassuming La Talpa is set like all the buildings into the rock. Intoxicating smells waft from its cavernous interior and we’re particularly keen to sample the local speciality, purea di fave con cicorielle di campo (a broad bean puree with chicory), and they don’t disappoint. The beloved is particularly enamoured of his traditional Vitello all’aceto balsamico. But this culinary joy is nothing compared to our hotel breakfast the following morning.

Arranged like a buffet, it is a veritable feast. Everything is locally sourced from the salty Pecorino to the butter, ham, apricots and plums. There are sweet almond cakes, savoury biscuits and bitter chocolate cake. A flan stuffed with squidgy tomatoes, fresh orange juice and steaming pots of jasmine tea. It seems criminal to leave anything, so we devour with gusto. It takes some time but is the perfect start to a leisurely day.

There’s not a lot to do in Matera, which suits us fine. We wander through the deserted Sassi on the old side of town and visit a mini museum that shows a cave furnished as in ancient times and another on Via B Buozzi that highlights the Roman underground system of irrigation so essential to the region on. We wend our way through a former church/monastery turned art gallery, Madonna delle Virtù and San Nicola dei Greci on Via Purgatorio Vecchio and devote ourselves to the pursuit of more fine food. Le Bubbole plays host to our final meal as it has a rooftop terrace with an enchanting view of the city. What’s more, there’s an extraordinary full moon, heightening the sense of Matera as an almost mystical place that has many tales to tell. Tonight though, it’s keeping schtum, and all is well with us, and the world.

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Price per night from $148.20