Matera at sunrise, Alberobello's quiet half, Polignano when the cove empties

Matera, Alberobello, Polignano a Mare

1. 6:45 am1

   Sunrise over the Sassi from the Belvedere di Murgia TimoneMatera

   Fifteen minutes by car around and across the gorge, on the park side. This is the angle every film of Matera is shot from, and at sunrise the light comes up the Sasso Caveoso first while the Barisano side is still blue. No gate, no ticket, and there will be two other cars.

   7 min walk · 550 m
2. 9:30 am2

   The rock churches: Santa Maria de Idris and San Pietro BarisanoMatera

   CORRECTED 2026-09-06: this stop used to start at 08:15, when every one of these churches is locked. Santa Maria de Idris with San Giovanni in Monterrone and Santa Lucia alle Malve open daily 09:30–19:30, San Pietro Barisano daily 10:00–19:00 — so take Idris on the dot of 09:30 and cross to Barisano after 10:00. One combined ticket covers several (about €3, €5 or €6 for one, two or three) and you buy it at whichever you reach first. Idris is cut into the rock spur with frescoes reached through a tunnel; Barisano is the largest and the coldest, with the drainage niches where the dead were seated upright to dry. Add the Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario for €5 — one room, a mule stall inside the front door, and the only exhibit that explains why the state emptied the Sassi in 1952.

   54 min by train or taxi · 54 km
3. 11:15 am3

   Drive Matera to AlberobelloAlberobello

   About 70 km and an hour and a quarter, and the SS172 stretch through the Valle d'Itria is the good part. You now leave the Sassi at 11:15 rather than 10:15, because the rock churches do not open until 09:30. Both centres are limited-traffic zones — park outside and walk in. NOT VERIFIED 2026-09-06: Alberobello's exact ZTL hours; what is clear is that access permits go to residents and businesses only, so do not plan on driving to the trulli. Fuel and the odd toll on the card.

   6 min walk · 400 m
4. 12:40 pm4

   Rione Aia Piccola, not Rione MontiAlberobello

   Monti is the thousand-trulli postcard and nearly every cone in it is a shop with a man outside offering you a free look upstairs. Cross Largo Martellotta into Aia Piccola, where roughly four hundred trulli are still lived in and nobody will sell you a whistle. Trullo Sovrano, the only two-storey one, takes twenty minutes. Verified 2026-09-06: it opens 10:00–12:45 and 15:30–18:30 (15:30–18:00 November–March), and on this later timing you reach Alberobello at 12:30, so it does not fit — either go straight to its door before 12:45 and walk Aia Piccola after, or pick it up at 15:30 and push the drive to the coast back an hour.

   5 min walk · 350 m
5. 1:30 pm5

   Lunch at La CantinaAlberobello

   Twenty seats down a staircase on Vico Lippolis, open since 1958, and there is no walk-in — book it before you leave Matera or eat somewhere worse. Orecchiette with cime di rapa, and the house Primitivo comes in a jug.

   21 min by train or taxi · 21 km
6. 3:15 pm6

   Drive down to Polignano a MarePolignano a Mare

   Forty minutes. Park in the paid lots on Via San Vito and walk in: the centro storico is pedestrian and the streets ringing it are a one-way trap that has eaten better drivers than you.

   8 min by train or taxi · 2.6 km
7. 4:15 pm7

   Lama Monachile after the crowd has gonePolignano a Mare

   The pebble cove under the Roman bridge is shoulder to shoulder from 11:00 and empty by 17:00, when the cliff throws it into shade and the water goes glass-flat. Swim shoes — it is stones, not sand, and the entry is steep. Walk the terraces above it afterwards toward the Lungomare Domenico Modugno.

   6 min walk · 500 m
8. 6 pm8

   A caffè speciale at Il Super Mago del GeloPolignano a Mare

   Mario's bar on Piazza Garibaldi. Ask for the caffè speciale — espresso, cream, lemon zest and amaretto, invented on this counter — and drink it standing up with the rest of the town.