Day Trips from Matera
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Medieval Basilicata away from the crowds: just under an hour’s drive west of Matera stands a town whose history can still be read in its street plan – two quarters of Arab origin, two Norman ones, a 27-metre watchtower above the Basento valley, and hardly a coach in sight.
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The closest worthwhile day out from Matera lies just twenty kilometres away – and most people drive straight past it. Montescaglioso is known as the „town of monasteries“: several convents stand within the old centre, the largest a Benedictine abbey with two cloisters high above the Bradano valley. Add rock churches in the Murgia park and a carnival far older than anything built for visitors.
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Twenty kilometres south-west of Matera, at 461 metres, stands a castle with an unusual name: Castello del Malconsiglio, the Castle of Bad Counsel. In 1485 the barons of the Kingdom of Naples met here to conspire against their king – it ended badly for them. The main church also holds an eighteen-panel altarpiece by Cima da Conegliano.
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Bernalda stands at 126 metres above the Ionian plain, half an hour from the sea and just under an hour from Matera. It has a Norman castle, one of the longest promenades in Basilicata – and a famous descendant: Francis Ford Coppola’s family comes from here, and the director has turned a palazzo in the centre into a hotel.
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From a distance Pisticci looks like a white band across the hillside: some two hundred identical whitewashed houses with pointed gables, stacked in rows. The quarter is called Dirupo, „the collapse“, and took this shape after a landslide in 1688. Add the calanchi, the bare clay gullies – and a herbal liqueur half of Italy knows.
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Aliano is the most literary place in Basilicata. In 1935 the Turin doctor and painter Carlo Levi was exiled here; out of that year in this village came „Christ Stopped at Eboli“, the book that made southern Italy visible to the rest of the world. Levi chose to be buried here. All around, the land falls away into the calanchi, bare clay gullies where almost nothing grows.
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Above Tursi, on a rocky spur, hangs a small town of its own: the Rabatana. Saracens are said to have founded it in the 9th or 10th century and to have named it after their word Rabhàdi, the settlement outside the walls. The quarter still feels as though it belonged to another country, and its church holds a stone nativity worth the climb. A few kilometres further on, the sanctuary of Anglona stands alone in the landscape.
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Once a year, two trees marry in Accettura. A turkey oak is felled in one forest, a holly brought from another, the two are joined together in the town and then raised – a rite older than Christianity, now celebrated in honour of the patron saint San Giuliano. The „Maggio di Accettura“ is one of the most remarkable festivals in southern Italy.
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Basilicata has two coasts, and even many Italians barely know the second: some 32 kilometres of Tyrrhenian shore around Maratea, with cliffs, coves and a statue of Christ looking out to sea from a mountain top. It is a long way from Matera – but for two days it is the finest contrast to the cave city.
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Few places in Basilicata tell so much history in so small a space: Venosa was a Roman colony on the Via Appia, the birthplace of the poet Horace, an early Christian bishop’s seat and the burial place of Norman counts – and today it lies in the heart of Aglianico del Vulture wine country. From Matera it is a good hour and a quarter.
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The first Norman capital of southern Italy, Emperor Frederick II’s favourite residence, the setting of five papal councils: Melfi, at the foot of the extinct volcano Monte Vulture, is the most history-laden day out from Matera – and for wine lovers the gateway to Aglianico del Vulture.
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On a tuff outcrop above the Bradano valley, 833 metres up, stands one of the most beautiful villages in Italy: Acerenza, the „città cattedrale“. Its cathedral is regarded as the most important Romanesque church in Basilicata, and the medieval centre has remained almost unchanged. From Matera it takes about an hour and a half.
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Round stone houses with conical roofs, packed side by side: the trulli of Alberobello are on the World Heritage list, like Matera.
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White houses on a rock face with a cove between two cliffs below – the best-known postcard subject on the Adriatic coast.
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A harbour town on the Adriatic with an old town, a castle and fewer crowds than its famous neighbours.
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The capital of Apulia is, for many people, only the airport. In fact the old town in particular is worth half a day.
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Known for its bread – and for a dinosaur quarry and a prehistoric find.
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A town on the edge of a ravine, spanned by an aqueduct bridge – Matera without the crowds.
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An octagonal castle alone on a hill – the most puzzling building of Frederick II.
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A hill village that had to be given up and now stands as a ruin above the hills of Basilicata.
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Greek temple remains on the plain and long sandy beaches – the other side of Basilicata.
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Matera lies conveniently between Basilicata and Puglia. Several rewarding destinations are within a short hour’s drive, others need a full day – and one of them two. This overview sorts them by distance and direction; every place has its own page with sights, travel details and tips.
