Several years ago, I toyed with the idea of moving to New York City for work. A little house hunting revealed there were no places in my budget that came with even a little patch of soil to call my own. I remember standing out in the summer garden on an especially beautiful night, wondering how I could ever leave my dirt. And in the end, I couldn’t.<\/p>\n
This spring I spent some time in Matera, a town in southern Italy originally built in 3rd century BC. Houses are caves carved from stone, streets and buildings atop more houses. The city was evacuated by the Italian government in the 1950s when malaria was rampant, and families lived in the caves alongside their animals, without sanitation.<\/p>\n
In the 1980s, redevelopment began, making many of the caves livable again. The roads in this part of town, the Sassi, are mainly pedestrian only. I can’t even imagine how people move furniture or bring home groceries. Surely they must find an easier way than I did, when lugging my suitcase through the maze to my hotel when arriving my first evening.<\/p>\n
It’s all terribly beautiful and incredibly humbling to stay in these rebuilt ancient structures. At the same time there are still many untouched structures, and it can be hard to tell from the outside which of the caves are places someone calls home.<\/p>\n
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