Gravina in Puglia: The Town With the James Bond Bridge

In the 2021 James Bond film No Time to Die, there is a scene where Bond — driving an Aston Martin through the streets of what appears to be Matera — launches himself off a bridge, free-falls above a deep ravine, and deploys a grapple to swing to safety. The scene was filmed on location. The bridge is real. And it is not in Matera.

The Ponte Viadotto di Gravina — the double-arched aqueduct bridge that appears in the film — is in Gravina in Puglia, a town of 43,000 people in the Alta Murgia plateau, 60 kilometres west of Bari. The bridge spans the Gravina di Gravina — the limestone gorge that splits the city in two and from which the town takes its name — at a height of 35 metres above the valley floor. It was built in the Roman era, destroyed by an earthquake in 1722, rebuilt by the Orsini family as an aqueduct in the 18th century, and restored to its current state in the 20th century.

It is one of the most photogenic structures in inland Puglia. And it is the least of the reasons to visit Gravina in Puglia.

🏛️ Where the Canyon Splits the City

The gorge itself — the gravina — is the real subject. On both cliff faces, carved directly into the soft limestone, are cave churches, cave dwellings, and the remains of a settlement that has used this natural shelter since prehistoric times. Below the town, a network of underground chambers, cisterns, and tunnels carved into the tuff bedrock constitutes one of the most extensive underground cities in the region. Above the ravine, the historic centre has a Romanesque cathedral, palaces, and the birthplace of a Pope.

Gravina in Puglia is the kind of town that rewards the visitor who arrives knowing what’s there — and overwhelms the one who arrives without a plan. This guide covers both.

📅 Best Time to Visit Gravina in Puglia

Season	Conditions	Verdict
April – May	Mild 16–22°C, countryside vivid, uncrowded.	✅✅ Outstanding
June	Warm, full services, long evenings.	✅✅ Excellent
July – August	Hot inland (35°C+), quieter than coastal towns.	✅ Go early morning
September – October	Warm, quieter, grape harvest in the DOC vineyards.	✅✅ Excellent
November – March	Cool, very quiet, cathedral and underground city at their most atmospheric.	✅ Good for the serious visitor

April, May, and September are the best months — mild temperatures for walking the ravine paths and the historic centre, and the surrounding Alta Murgia landscape at its most attractive. July and August are hot inland but Gravina is significantly less crowded than the coastal destinations, making it a good choice for summer visitors who want to escape the beach crowds.

💡 The James Bond bridge is best photographed in the morning when the light comes from the east and illuminates the full span of the arches. By afternoon the ravine falls into shadow and the bridge loses visual definition.

🏛️ What to See in Gravina in Puglia

The Ponte Viadotto — The James Bond Bridge

The Ponte Viadotto di Gravina is the town’s most immediately striking landmark — a double-arched stone bridge spanning the gorge at 35 metres above the valley floor, constructed on Roman foundations and rebuilt in the 18th century by the Orsini family as an aqueduct carrying water from the surrounding plateau into the town.

The bridge appears in No Time to Die (2021) in the extended Matera chase sequence — the production designers chose Gravina’s bridge specifically for its dramatic height above the gorge. The scene was filmed with Bond launching from the bridge parapet, which gives some sense of what 35 metres above a limestone ravine actually looks like.

The best viewpoint for the bridge is from the Botromagno side — cross the bridge itself, walk down into the ravine from the opposite bank, and look back. The full span of the arches, the height above the gorge floor, and the cave church openings visible in the cliff face below the town are all visible from this angle simultaneously. It is one of the finest viewpoints in inland Puglia.

💡 Combine the bridge with the ravine walk. The path along the floor of the Gravina di Gravina passes beneath the bridge and continues along the gorge. A 40-minute walk covers the most dramatic section and gives the best perspective on both the bridge and the cave churches carved into the cliff above.

The Gravina di Gravina — The Ravine

The Gravina di Gravina is the limestone gorge that gave the town its name and shaped its entire history. The gorge is approximately 35 metres deep at its widest point and cuts through the plateau for several kilometres, creating a natural defensive position that every civilisation to inhabit this area — prehistoric, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Norman, and medieval Italian — has exploited.

Both cliff faces are studded with cave openings — some natural, most enlarged by human hands over thousands of years. These caves were used as dwellings, storage spaces, animal shelters, and — most significantly — as places of worship. The rupestrian churches carved into the rock face represent one of the densest concentrations of cave sacred architecture in northern Puglia.

The ravine is walkable on a marked path from the bridge to the archaeological park at Botromagno. The path is uneven in places and requires sturdy footwear — comfortable shoes are a minimum, hiking shoes preferable.

The Rupestrian Churches — Christianity in the Rock

The Byzantine monks who settled in southern Italy from the 8th century onwards had a particular affinity for cave churches — the cool, quiet interior of the rock provided a natural contemplative environment and required no construction materials. Gravina has several cave churches of considerable quality.

Chiesa di San Michele delle Grotte is the most visited — a cave church containing a striking ossuary: a collection of human bones (skulls and long bones stacked in visible arrangement) attributed by local tradition to the victims of a Saracen attack. The space is small, dimly lit, and completely unlike any conventional church experience. It requires commitment to find and enter, which means it’s almost never crowded.

Chiesa di San Vito Vecchio is the oldest of the cave churches and the most archaeologically significant — with fragmentary Byzantine frescoes surviving on the carved walls, among the earliest Christian art in the area.

Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Angeli is carved into the cliff face of the ravine and visible from the bridge viewpoint — its facade cut directly from the limestone.

💡 The cave churches require some searching. They are not all well-signposted from the main streets. Download the comune tourist map before your visit or ask at the tourist information office near the cathedral — a guided tour covers all of them in 2 hours and is the most efficient way to see them in context.

Gravina Sotterranea — The Underground City

Beneath the streets of Gravina in Puglia, the soft tuff bedrock has been carved into an extensive network of underground chambers, cisterns, and tunnels over centuries of occupation. The underground city was used as a shelter during times of conflict, as storage for food, wine, and water, and as a refuge during the various attacks and sieges the town experienced through the medieval period.

The accessible sections include large cisterns with barrel-vaulted ceilings, narrow tunnels connecting different levels of the underground network, and chambers of various sizes that show the marks of different periods of excavation and use. The entire complex extends beneath a significant portion of the historic centre — how far has not been fully mapped.

Guided tours operate regularly and are the only way to access the underground sections. The tour takes approximately 1 hour and covers the most significant chambers. Book through the Gravina Sotterranea website: gravinasotterranea.com

💡 Wear a jacket. The underground temperature is constant at approximately 14–16°C regardless of the outdoor temperature. In summer this is welcome; in winter it requires an extra layer.

The Romanesque Cathedral

The Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta at the centre of the historic district dates from the 11th century — a Romanesque structure of considerable quality with a carved portal, a fine bell tower, and an interior that preserves good medieval stonework despite later baroque modifications.

The cathedral is most notable as the birthplace of Pope Benedict XIII — elected in 1724 and one of the few popes born in Puglia. The family palazzo of the Orsini della Gravina, to which Benedict XIII belonged, still stands near the cathedral.

The Museo Capitolare di Gravina adjacent to the cathedral contains an excellent collection of religious art from the medieval and Renaissance periods — paintings, silverwork, vestments, and architectural fragments from the cathedral’s various construction phases. The museum is small but well-curated and includes works of genuine quality.

Hours: Cathedral open daily; museum hours vary — check locally Admission: Cathedral free; museum nominal fee

The Botromagno Archaeological Park

On the opposite side of the gorge from the historic centre, the Parco Archeologico di Botromagno occupies the site of the ancient settlement that preceded the current town. The park contains the remains of a 4th-century BC Peucetian (pre-Roman Italic) settlement — walls, cisterns, and structural foundations visible on the hilltop — and a walking trail through the scrubland with views back across the ravine to the cave church openings in the cliff face.

The park is free to enter and open throughout daylight hours. It requires walking — allow 45 minutes for a comfortable circuit of the main site.

🍷 What to Eat and Drink in Gravina

Frederick II, passing through this area in the 13th century on his way between his various southern Italian kingdoms, reportedly described the Alta Murgia plateau as “the land of wheat and wine”. The observation is still accurate 800 years later.

Gravina DOC is one of the oldest wine appellations in Puglia — grapes have been cultivated in the area for over 1,200 years, with documentary evidence of wine production here predating most of the famous northern Italian wine traditions. The DOC covers white wines made primarily from Greco and Malvasia grapes, producing dry whites of considerable character — mineral, slightly aromatic, with good acidity and a freshness unusual in inland Pugliese whites. Local restaurants serve the Gravina DOC by the glass at prices that reflect local rather than tourist demand.

Pane di Gravina — made from the same ancient durum wheat varieties as the more famous Pane di Altamura DOP (10 kilometres away) — is a dense, flavourful sourdough bread with a thick crust and an open crumb. The two towns have been rivals in bread tradition for centuries. Both are excellent. The Gravina version is marginally less famous and marginally easier to find at honest prices.

Pallone di Gravina is the local cheese — a stretched-curd cow’s milk cheese shaped into a round ball (pallone means ball), available fresh (mild, smooth, good for melting) or aged (stagionato), when it develops a sharp, dense character that works sliced thin with local cured meats and the Gravina DOC white. Buy it at the local alimentari or the weekly market rather than in tourist shops.

Local lamb from the Alta Murgia plateau — roasted with rosemary, garlic, and the local olive oil — is the Sunday dish of the area. The lamb here is grass-fed on the plateau vegetation and produces meat of flavour and texture that the intensively farmed equivalents don’t approach.

🚗 How to Get to Gravina in Puglia

By Car — The Most Practical Option

Gravina is well-connected by road from both Bari and Matera.

• From Bari airport: approximately 65km via the SS96 — around 1 hour
• From Bari city: approximately 60km — around 55 minutes via the SS96
• From Matera: approximately 25km — around 25 minutes via the SS7
• From Altamura: approximately 10km — around 12 minutes
• From Castel del Monte: approximately 50km — around 50 minutes

Parking is available near the historic centre and along the road approaching the bridge viewpoint. The historic centre itself has some limited ZTL zones — park on the periphery and walk in.

By Train — The Scenic Option

Ferrovie Appulo Lucane (FAL) operates a regional rail line connecting Bari and Matera via Gravina in Puglia. The journey from Bari takes approximately 1 hour 20 minutes; from Matera approximately 35 minutes. The Gravina station is a 15-minute walk from the historic centre.

This is one of the most scenic train journeys in inland Puglia — the line crosses the Alta Murgia plateau with views of the limestone landscape and the distant towns on their hilltops. Worth doing as an experience in itself.

📍 Nearby Places Worth Visiting

Matera (25km, Basilicata) — The UNESCO cave city, one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban landscapes in the world. The connection between Matera and Gravina is more than geographical — both towns have cave church traditions, rupestrian architecture, and a landscape shaped by limestone ravines. Combining both in a single itinerary is natural and rewarding. The James Bond film connects them in popular consciousness.

Altamura (10km) — The city of the DOP-protected sourdough bread, with a Romanesque cathedral built by Frederick II. The bread rivalry between Altamura and Gravina is friendly and unresolved. Buy from both.

Castel del Monte (50km) — Frederick II’s octagonal UNESCO castle on a bare hilltop. The same emperor who noted the “land of wheat and wine” at Gravina built his most architecturally extraordinary commission nearby.

Bari (60km) — Puglia’s capital, with the Basilica di San Nicola, the old town, focaccia barese, and excellent onward connections. A natural base for a Gravina day trip.

Murge Plateau — The Alta Murgia National Park that surrounds Gravina has excellent walking and cycling through a landscape of limestone, scrub oak, and ancient pastoral traditions. One of the least-visited national parks in southern Italy.

✍️ Conclusion: The Town That Earns Its Visit

Gravina in Puglia is not a town that works on first impressions. The drive in from Bari is across flat agricultural land. The outskirts are unremarkable. Then you reach the gorge — the ravine that the town is named for — and the bridge appears, and the cave churches in the cliff face appear, and the underground city waits beneath the streets, and the wine from the 1,200-year-old vineyards is poured by the glass in the restaurant on the square.

The effort is modest. The reward is disproportionate.

Most visitors to Puglia never come to Gravina — they go to Alberobello and Ostuni and Lecce and the coast. The visitors who do come, often on the way between Bari and Matera, almost always wish they had given it more time.

Give it more time.

Explore more of this corner of Puglia on beautifulpuglia.com: Matera, Altamura, Castel del Monte, Bari, and the Northern Puglia itinerary.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions