A beautiful Italian town carved from a mountainside is so stunning to look at it's been immortalised as a backdrop for more than 20 films. The good looks of Matera, in the less well known Basilicata region of Italy, are thanks to its unusual limestone architecture and a natural gorge that surrounds the settlement.

Now home to 60,000 people, Matera dates back thousands of years to the Palaeolithic period when the first people arrived and dug out homes in caves from the relatively soft rock formation. Matera was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993, a ruling which covers the town as well as the ancient cave dwellings which are known as the Sassi.