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Our hotel is 1,8 km far from the Massafra Cathedral and the close historic center, with its Castle, that can be visited according to the calendar established by the municipality, and two very characteristic rock churches.
The history of Massafra can’t ignore its archaeological contents. Rock villages, necropolises and frescoed crypts highlight its high historical-cultural content.
Indeed, the urban center of Massafra grew as an evolution of the pre-existing underground caves; therefore very different models have coexisted with each other for millennia, from the first rock settlements, to those of the ancient village up to the modern inhabited center. The different caves and the scenery of the ravines constitute an interesting cultural journey that allows the visitor to immerse himself in a particular atmosphere, as if he were traveling back in time to the dawn of history.
The Cathedral is the most important religious building in Massafra. Its construction works began in 1853, as a gift from Marchesa Pizziferri. Unfortunately, due to the precarious economic conditions, they were stopped for a long period so that only a century later, the church was opened to the public.
The castle of Massafra is located in the historic centre, in the locality of lo Pizzo and overlooks the Gravina San Marco. Its structure and architecture are similar to other Apulian castles, with four towers arranged in a quadrilateral and linked by city walls. The most ancient towers have a circular plan while the south-east tower have an octagonal one. The first certain information about the castle are dated in 970.
The Tower is considered the symbol of the ancient village. It is 22 meters high with eighteenth-century bells and it has a baroque decoration, in harmony with the church of S. Benedetto. It is located in piazza Garibaldi, at the beginning of via Vittorio Veneto, with the front to Via Laterra. It is the civic symbol of the city, as a popular reference.
The two Gravine are relevant from a tourist point of view: the Gravina of San Marco, which crosses the town and within which there is the rock village of Santa Marina that can be visited with a tourist guide, and then the Gravina of Madonna della Scala, inside of which there is the homonym eighteenth-century sanctuary accessible with a staircase of 125 steps.
Close to the area crossed by the Pertusillo water pipeline there is a small necropolis, still to be circumscribed, with a rocky spur in the center (with a probable chamber tomb currently blocked on the inside). A sacral area is shaped on it, most likely used for funeral rituals. A short distance from it there is a small cave nucleus with a curious cave called "of the ships". On the walls, distinctive signs of ships are engraved, from which the name "of the ships" derives, together with crosses and Greek inscriptions, of which only one surviving trace can be read.
Near the "Accetulla" area it is possible to see this strange sedimentary complex, created by man at the dawn of history. An approximate dating would place it immediately after the great glaciation. This would therefore demonstrate an even more remote origin than what is supposed for the inhabited nucleus of Massafra. However, this thesis has not yet been confirmed. Anyway, the idea that those stones remained there as a sign of the first human presence on this planet is fascinating.
