Inside the cellar of the restaurant "Il Terrazzino” is a tank which it is connected to a more complex water collection system, In fact, in the past there flowed water from settling tanks placed at the highest levels.
The Sassi of Matera are one of the oldest urban centers in the world and base their existence on a complex system of water collection. The vital need to collect and store water, combined with human ingenuity, He has brought the inhabitants of these places to dig cisterns, connected with the communicating vessels, and that purchasing no colmasse of water, such items in succession.
On the roofs of the houses many small canals were made that allowed water to flow into a cistern at the center of a courtyard, common to most families. The Case These sassi, in fact, They are distributed in so-called “neighborhoods", courtyards or squares with a semicircular shape, Common to about ten families.
In case of heavy rains, The tanker began too full to overflowing and the water flowed through a channel in the tanks of the houses below or adjacent. In this way the water was never superfluous disperses but it preserved in the various reserves.

The focal point of this complex system is the Palombaro long, in the central site Piazza Vittorio Veneto It has become one of the most visited places in Matera by thousands of tourists.
Deep 20 m and with a capacity of five million liters Water is an ancient hydraulic engineering masterpiece. The Palombaro Lungo itself as one of the tanks dug in the biggest hand in the world, unique for its characteristics. To achieve that it took about thirty years and in the past it was also possible navigate in its huge tanks. The Palombaro Lungo was the main water supply of the whole city. He gathered the waters of the aquifer of the Castle Tramontano in Monte, and stormwater.
Its tuff walls are covered with a special plaster that can make them waterproof. View from inside, this tank has walls with a rounded shape designed to be able to dampen the water pressure present in its interior.
This cistern is only part of the largest and complex system collection of water that extends under the entire city of Matera with a structure similar to that of the roots of a tree Inverse, or it is formed by small cisterns connected at the bottom to larger tanks.
Only thanks to this hydraulic masterpiece was possible, for the people who inhabited the Sassi to survive and ride out all the hardships especially during poor rainfall.
Few know that Matera the system of collection of water was one of the reasons for which UNESCO recognized Matera as a World Heritage.