If you visit the southern Italian city of Matera this month, you may be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Mr James Bond himself. Daniel Craig and company will be filming the latest 007 movie in the ancient city of caves, which was also the backdrop to the Amazonian island of Themyscira in Wonder Woman (2017).

It is not hard to understand Hollywood's fascination with the historical Sassi of Matera - a labyrinthine network of tunnels, staircases and former cave dwellings. Even today, the city - said to be one of the oldest continually inhabited places in the world - looks like something out of a Biblical movie (and has in fact been a filming location in several, most famously Mel Gibson's 2004 The Passion Of The Christ).