Category: Matera

Tempa Rossa is an oilfield located high in the Sauro valley, in the heart of the region of Basilicata, in southern Italy. The projects primarily extends over the region in the Municipality of Corleto Perticara (PZ), 4 km away from where the future processing centre is to be built. 5 wells have already been drilled in the region of the Municipality of Corleto Perticara, while the sixth well is located in the Municipality of Gorgoglione. The area where the LPG is to be stored is located in the Municipality of Guardia Perticara.

Basilicata is a region suspended between magic and natural beauty, between stone houses and the lunar spectacle of the gullies

“Fairy Attractions” for a whole Basilicata to discover: here is the leitmotiv of an interesting initiative, presented in early December in this part of the Italian south, also called Lucania, and aimed at enhancing the knowledge of some of the most beautiful places and evocative of Italy, unfortunately still unknown to most, using theatrical and musical language, in a truly innovative way.

Nature, magic and gastronomy are the right channels to enhance the Lucanian municipalities of Sasso di Castalda, Castelsaraceno and Aliano.

An intense and exciting three days allowed tourists, but also the inhabitants themselves, to explore and visit the charming villages of the Lucan hinterland that with their original peculiarities offer a stay of relaxation, fun and healthy food. genuine.

The “Fairy Attractions” event, organized by the Basilicata Region, the Val d’Agri Operational Program Melandro Sauro Camastra and the Apt Basilicata, saw the constant presence of traveling theatrical performances and Christmas markets in the three interested Lucan communes. immediately drop the visitor into a familiar and welcoming atmosphere. Every theatrical scene – in particular – guided the guest in the soul of the country and one of them illustrated “the tourist attractor” (that is the element that attracts the tourist and reinforces the entire tourist system) that was achieved thanks to oil royalties. Perhaps it is not known to all, but Basilicata is a region rich in oil, which has been mined here since the 1970s. In Sasso di Castalda the attractor “Suspended on the Arenazzo”, 370 meters on wooden planks and steel strands to cross the valley and reach a rocky outcrop, and admire the ruins of the Longobard castle, allows visitors to have a particular view on the geological stone that distinguishes the town. In Castelsaraceno the “Bridge between the two parks” consists of a Tibetan bridge over the Racanello Gorges. “Vivere i Calanchi”, instead in Aliano, the town that hosted the exile of the writer and painter Carlo Levi in ​​the 1930s, through suitable routes (trekking, cycling, etc.) offers the possibility of enjoying the lunar spectacle of the gullies , that is “typed forms of fast erosion”, also a vast phenomenon, which affects 30% of the entire regional territory, particularly in the hilly areas next to the Ionian plain. Carlo Levi in ​​his book “Christ has stopped at Eboli” describes them like this: “… and of all around other white trees without trees and without grass, dug by the waters in holes, in cones, squares of malign appearance , like a lunar landscape … “and yet” … and on every side there were nothing but precipices of white clay, on which the houses were like freed in the air “.

The archaeological park of Grumeto

The archaeological park of Grumeto But there are many other attractions in this region: Guardia Perticara is called “the village with stone houses”. Guardia is a village that can be walked slowly, crossing the benevolent eyes of women on the doorstep, and here, when the sequences of “Christ stopped at Eboli” came, the director Francesco Rosi found that atmosphere of a lost country elsewhere. A Guardia Perticara proudly resists the stone: that stone of Gorgoglione that gives life and thickness to portals, tiers, arches, balconies and is combined with wrought iron balconies, and certainly also with the fresh air that brings the scents of the woods and enters in the alleys without encountering resistance. The stones worked by master craftsmen and the red brick vaults warn the visitor that this is a village that is serious about recovering its identity. There is to be lost, in these stony doodles that are like friezes of a place that wants to redeem itself, to open new pages in the southern landscape, to rediscover the sense of a community dispersed by emigration and now ready to reconquer its own country. Don’t miss the Archaeological Museum of Grumentum or the Val d’Adri and the Park with its excavations, which are located not far from Grumento Nova. The ruins of the old city of Grumentum are on a small hill between the Sciaura stream and the Agri river. The urban layout of the city was very simple with three main streets and a series of streets that intersected the main streets. The ancient city was surrounded by a wall three kilometers long with six doors. Three monumental complexes remain of the remains of the Roman Grumentum. The first consists of a theater of the Augustan age, two small temples of the imperial age and a domus patricia, the “house of mosaics”. The second complex corresponds to the area of ​​the ancient Forum; on the north side there is the so-called “Capitolium” and on the south side the alleged “Cesareo”. Other public buildings stood on the west side and the remaining perimeter was surrounded by arcades. The third complex consists of the remains of the amphitheater, built in the 1st century BC and modified in the imperial age. The museum brings together the testimonies of the various settlements that succeeded each other in the area from the prehistoric age, giving particular emphasis to the ancient Roman colony of Grumentum, founded in 133 BC. to the Apennine ceramics of Moliterno and Paterno. In the pre-Roman section of the museum ceramic fragments from the Neolithic period are on display, artifacts dating back to the Iron Age and the Archaic Age, evidence of the passage from classicism to Hellenism. The Roman section documents the various aspects of the city of Grumentum: productive, commercial and cult activities. Of note is a head depicting Livia, wife of Augustus. Finally, one cannot forget to taste the local gastronomic specialties, such as the Canestrato IGP, ie the pecorino from Moliterno, the wines of the upper Val d’Agri, the homemade pasta such as the strascinati or cavatelli, the barbecued lamb.