How to Have an Indiana Jones Moment in Matera: Inside the Cave of the Original Sin

Join me this evening at 8pm ET for September's Destination Deep Dive

Last week, I recorded a podcast about how to start thinking about your trip, before you even touch a spreadsheet or an itinerary. I discussed the ingredients to make travel meaningful, including “an Indiana Jones experience.” If you’re looking for some inspiration, my personal favorite is the Crypt of the Original Sin, located just outside Matera.

You need a reservation, but not because it’s so busy. Only a few people are allowed inside at a time, as it’s on private property. Access is provided through a guide who meets you at a local agriturismo. You follow in your car, bump along dirt roads into a vineyard where you then park next to Aglianico grapevines.

Matera is likely the third-oldest continually inhabited city in the world after Aleppo and Jericho. The city was devastated in the early 20th century, and in the 1960s, a group of college students set out to reclaim it. In May of 1963, the students discovered the most extraordinary secret of local shepherds, who used this particular cave to relax and cool off from the punishing heat.

To enter, you descend a series of stairs, where you will notice the imprints of shells and fossils along the outside of the cave, because this is also an ancient seabed. You enter, position yourself in the near dark to sit down on the smooth stone floor, and wait for the guide.

Then, let there be light.

The guide turns them on, and you are in intimate contact with the paintings made to change the hearts and minds of people from the 9th century. This was a sort of church, or gathering space, where traveling monks from Greece would have introduced Christianity to people who were still worshipping Jupiter and Minerva.

The paintings haven’t been restored or altered; plenty is missing, and there is considerable decay, but that’s the point. You’re in raw contact with the spiritual world of over 1,100 years ago. This is a direct experience—you only need to sit there and be present to feel the centuries fall away. And when you leave and step into sunlight again, you’re transformed. That’s precisely what the artists who created these paintings over 800 years ago intended for you.

Tonight, the Matera Deep Dive is going to share stories of this most ancient city, which will definitely inspire you to visit. The monthly Destination Deep Dive is a benefit for paid subscribers. You are invited to the premiere tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET, featuring a live Q&A. The video replay will then be posted on Saturday and you’ll have access to it for 3 days. After that, a more polished, evergreen version, paired with an itinerary, will be available behind a paywall. However, paid subscribers will receive a code for a 50% discount.

The Zoom link is below…