Basilicata fills the arch of the Italian boot, a landlocked land save for two short coasts, a sliver of Tyrrhenian cliff at Maratea and a low Ionian shore in the south.
Go in May to June and September, for warm days and lighter crowds.
- Capital
- Potenza
- Size
- 10,073 km² (3,889 sq mi)
- People
- 537,000
The interior is almost entirely mountain and hill, from the wooded slopes of the Pollino, Italy's largest national park, to the extinct volcano of Monte Vulture and the sandstone pinnacles of the Dolomiti Lucane. The Romans called it Lucania, and the older name still carries the region's proud, austere character.
This is one of the last quiet corners of the peninsula, a place of stone villages and wide silence. At its heart stands Matera, whose Sassi, the cave dwellings carved into a ravine, passed from a byword for poverty to a UNESCO World Heritage Site and European Capital of Culture. The Lucanian table is frugal and forceful, built on bread, peperoni cruschi, the crisp dried sweet peppers, and the deep red Aglianico del Vulture grown on volcanic soil.
Come in late spring or early autumn, when the highlands are walkable and the hill towns belong to those who climb them.
What to see in Basilicata
Save the ones you want and we'll find which of our routes reaches the most in the fewest nights.
Craco Vecchia Historic Settlement
Craco Vecchia follows a ridge above the calanchi, its old stone settlement gathered beneath a medieval square tower.
Pietrapertosa
Basilicata's highest village, its Saracen rock quarter linked to Castelmezzano by a mountain-peak zipline.
Castelmezzano
A village built into the sandstone spires of the Dolomiti Lucane, linked to Pietrapertosa by zipline.
Sassi di Matera
Matera's cave districts, inhabited since the Paleolithic era and reborn as hotels and homes.
Matera Cathedral
Matera's thirteenth-century cathedral on the Civita, Romanesque outside and richly layered within.
Christ of Maratea
Bruno Innocenti's 1965 Christ the Redeemer, watching inland over Maratea from the summit of Monte San Biagio.
Parco della Murgia Materana
The wild plateau across from Matera’s Sassi, with 150-plus rock churches and the classic belvedere.
Crypt of the Original Sin
Matera's finest rock-cut fresco cycle, likely 9th-century, hidden in a ravine and strictly booked.
The short answer
- Where to sleep
- Pietrapertosa, Matera
- At least
- 3 nights
- Within a day out
- 7 of these 8
Saved to your Bucket list View saved
Booking through these links may earn Italia Magnifica a commission, at no cost to you.
How many nights in Basilicata?
Choose your nights and the route redraws: where to sleep, what to see, and the towns an easy day out from each base.
3 nights in Basilicata: Pietrapertosa for 1 and Matera for 2.5 nights in Basilicata: Pietrapertosa for 2 and Matera for 3.7 nights in Basilicata: Venosa for 2, Pietrapertosa for 2 and Matera for 3.10 nights in Basilicata: Venosa for 3, Pietrapertosa for 3 and Matera for 4.
Add your first day and each link opens on that stop's dates.
Booking through these links may earn Italia Magnifica a commission, at no cost to you.
Where to stay in Basilicata
Each stop with what to see and, where we have them, a day out and the hotel we'd book.
Venosa is a municipality in Basilicata, in Potenza province and the northern Vulture area.
- Day out
- Melfi
55 km from Venosa as the crow flies
Pietrapertosa is a municipality in Potenza province, Basilicata.
- Day out
- Castelmezzano
50 km from Pietrapertosa as the crow flies
Basilicata's cave city: Sassi districts, about 150 rock-cut churches, and a UNESCO landscape emptied by law in the 1950s, repopulated by choice from the 1980s on.
- Day out
- Craco
Hotel Il Belvedere Matera
Restored cave houses high in Sasso Caveoso, some under tufa vaults, with a broad terrace over both Sassi that shines at night.
More in Matera
Sextantio Le Grotte Della Civita
An albergo diffuso through restored caves in the Civita, deliberately spare, with breakfast in a former rock-cut church and views across the ravine.
Corte San Pietro
A handful of restored cave rooms around a Sasso Caveoso courtyard, with vaulted stone ceilings and stone baths, steps from San Pietro Caveoso.
Other places to stay
Leucos
A tiny B&B of a few rooms on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in central Potenza, an easy walk from the National Archaeological Museum.
Check dates in PotenzaB&B Osteria dell'Americano
A small rural B&B a short drive from central Potenza, with its own restaurant, a garden and terrace, and packed lunches for days out.
Check dates in Potenza
Booking through these links may earn Italia Magnifica a commission, at no cost to you.
A traditional dinner from Basilicata
Every course is one the region actually serves. Change any of them and the wine, the timing and the shopping list follow.
Antipasto
Rafanata
A baked Basilicata egg dish with mashed potatoes, aged Canestrato di Moliterno and freshly grated horseradish, finished with a golden crust.
First course
Strascinati con Peperoni Cruschi
Basilicata’s dragged pasta with its crowning glory: Senise peppers flash-fried to a crimson crackle, crumbled over garlic oil and breadcrumbs.
Main course
Pasturale di pecora: Basilicata sheep stew
Slow-simmered sheep shoulder with potatoes, chicory and onion, finished with fresh pork sausage and small pieces of pecorino.
Side
Ciambotta Lucana
Basilicata’s summer vegetable stew: peppers, eggplant, potatoes, and tomatoes cooked separately, then married. The garden in one pot, without the mush.
Dessert
Calzoncelli di castagne
Fried Lucanian pastries filled with chestnuts, dark chocolate and cooked grape must.
What to pour
A young Aglianico del Vulture, Basilicata’s great red: its acidity balances the sweetness of the peppers and the generous oil.
Aglianico
Start the Pasturale di pecora first: 4 hr 20 min.
Taste it there
Cook on a farm outside Matera
Booking through these links may earn Italia Magnifica a commission, at no cost to you.
What Basilicata is known for
You will find these here and nowhere else.
Clip in at Pietrapertosa, drop into the void at up to 120 km/h, and land in Castelmezzano about 1,400 metres later, the valley far below.
Inside these walls Frederick II issued the Constitutions of Melfi, the great law code of the Middle Ages, and the ten towers still stand.
Threaded by needle and twine into necklaces, Senise peppers dry in the sun on balcony rails, and that drying alone gives them their crunch.
Around the extinct Vulture
The extinct Vulture gives northern Basilicata a distinct wine landscape. Aglianico del Vulture connects vines with the volcano’s slopes and surrounding settlements, including Barile, Rionero and Venosa. Choose this area as one chapter of the region, allowing the working countryside to sit beside its castles and archaeological places.
Wines from BasilicataAt Christmas
Baccalà with peperoni cruschi and chestnut-filled calzoncelli give a Christmas menu two distinct Lucanian preparations. The fish dish pairs soft salt cod with crisp dried peppers; the pastries close a dark chestnut-and-chocolate filling inside thin dough. Plan their separate cooking stages before choosing more courses. For a visit to Matera, check the programme of any seasonal performance independently from the ordinary town visit.
Where next
Puglia
Puglia is the long, sun-bleached heel of Italy's boot, ribboned by 800 kilometers of coast and silver olive groves.
In your trip
Campania
Campania is Italy at full volume, where Vesuvius looms over Naples and the Amalfi Coast falls in pastel terraces to a turquoise sea.
In your trip
Molise
Italy's quietest region, where Samnite ruins and Roman towns sleep among wheat fields.
In your trip
