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The sun is low over Matera , in Basilicata . You stand at the edge of a deep valley . Old houses cover the slope below . This district is the Sasso Caveoso , a place of stone . Walk down the worn stone steps . People cut homes into this soft rock thousands of years ago . Each home is a cave with a door . Families lived in one cave for many generations . Life in the caves was close and hard . Families shared a small common courtyard . Neighbors met and talked in the courtyard every day . But many homes had no light and no clean water . In 1945 , the writer Carlo Levi published a book about this hard life . All of Italy talked about it . In 1952 , a national law moved about 15,000 people to new houses . The old districts stood empty and quiet . For years , the caves were silent . Then people slowly came back . They opened small hotels and cafés in the caves . In 1993 , UNESCO put the Sassi on its World Heritage list . In 2019 , Matera was the European Capital of Culture . Now the low sun turns the stone gold . The roof of one house is the floor of the next street . The old city of caves glows again .
