That’s what brought us to Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita, an 18-room albergo diffuso ("scattered hotel") built into centuries-old caves in the mountainside city of Matera in southern Italy.

The first inhabited zone dates from the Palaeolithic, while later settlements illustrate a number of significant stages in human history. Matera is in the southern region of Basilicata.

Located just off piazza San Pietro Caveoso, conveniently positioned on one of the main roads at the edge of the old city, amid the fantastical caves that excite Matera's frenzied fans, this lodge ...

On the northern edge of this famed UNESCO city, eying the sassi (Matera's spooky cave-pocked landscape), the Gravina gorge and the river below, this hotel exploits its mix of ancient tufa homes ...