THE CASTLES OF THE MELFITANE CONSTITUTIONS, THE FAMOUS SARCOPHAGUS OF RAPOLLA AND THE VULTURE’S CHARM. You will arrive at Naples airport and meet our assistant to transfer to Basilicata by private car. You will be accompanied by our guide, expert in history of art, and you will visit Melfi Castle, where Federico II issued in 1231 the Melfitane Constitutions, the greatest laic legislative monument of the middle ages. You will discover a marvellous castle expanded and restructured during the Swebian and Angevian era. It’s a fortified complex on top of a wall with eight towers and two big internal bodies that create a suggestive and spectacular scenography.
Inside you will find the National Archaeological Museum with a collection of important prehistoric and archaeological material. You will admire a magnificent work of artistic craftsmanship of the II century a.D.: The famous sarcophagus of Rapolla. You will live an emotional experience when on her coffin, that comes from Asia Minor workshops, you will see a small temple where, underneath the arches, you notice gods and heroes of classic inspiration. You will have lunch in a typical restaurant tasting regional specialities.
In the afternoon you will go on an excursion with a naturalistic guide to Vulture Mountain, the only extinct volcano in the Oriental side of the Apennines.
You will feel his prehistoric breath from its double crater occupied by the two small lakes of Monticchio, one of the most important Lucan tourist destinations.
But the Vulture will fascinate you for its forests, majestic wilderness where you will find a thousand of plant species dominated by beech, oaks, tighi, maple trees, chestnut trees, hornbeams, elms, ash trees, poplar and alder trees.
You will also find a still nourished fauna with martens, weasels, badgers, skunks, hares, squirrels, foxes and many species of birds.. Even so you won’t meet the great bird of pray yet, the Roman Vulture, frighteningly evoked by the name of the region.
You will continue until Melfi, where you will settle in the hotel and be welcomed by a bottle of local wine and flowers.
You will be served a dinner made of dishes of the Lucan tradition and you will spend the night in the hotel.

THE MAJESTIC CASTLES OF LAGOPESOLE AND VENOSA, THE PICTURESQUE AND PANORAMIC ACERENZA. You will have breakfast at the hotel and meet our guide. You’ll take a private car to the last and biggest castle wanted by Federico II: the Castle of Lagopesole.
Even if the construction was interrupted by the premature death of the Emperor, you will find yourself in a building that is far from the classic federician castles. You will discover a castle that is not only of great monumentality, but most of all of considerable elegance in the ashlar pattern that decorates the masses of walls.
You will continue to Venosa to visit its Castle with a square plan and angular cylindrical towers that was built thanks to the Duke Pirro del Balzo. Furthermore, you will linger in admiring the suggestive House of the poet Horace, a Roman Amphitheatre of imperial era, the Dome and, at last, one of the most important works of art of the Norman art in the South of Italy: the Trinity Abbey. In Venosa you will also find traces of Manfredi, the Swebian emperor son of Federico II and Bianca Lancia.
You will have lunch in a restaurant with exclusive offers of Lucan dishes, of ancient and peasant taste, together with the extremely precious wine Aglianico del Vulture. The afternoon will be dedicated to the visit of Acerenza where you will follow the picturesque alleys of the panoramic village situated at the top of a cliff.
Our guide will conduce you in its artistic Cathedral of the XVII century, through the most significant monuments of Basilicata. You will leave by private car and have dinner and spend the night is a suggestive hotel situated in the Stones of Matera.
You will live an emotional experience sleeping in a fantastic place: a candlelit cavern!

THE POETIC ATMOSPHERE OF THE PREHISTORIC CAVERNS OF MATERA. After breakfast at the hotel you will visit with the guide the spectacular Stones of Matera, one of the first human establishments in Italy.
You will explore extraordinary houses, dug out of the calcareous tuff cliff: habitations that include one living space only and the stables. After you have visited the Ridola Museum, where you will be introduced in the historic routes of the city, you will admire the spectacular and unusual landscape of the place. You will cross narrow and tortuous roads that wind in a labyrinth of crammed houses in a picturesque mess, with lodges and balconies sustained by decorated corbels.
For lunch you will enjoy a meal that is inspired by the historic Lucan cuisine: cavatelli with turnip greens, cimmaruchedde, strascinati with a meat souce, dishes that is characterized by very sharp smells like rosmary, mint, rue, wild cumin. In the afternoon you will go on to visiting some rock churches, where during the centuries there has been a fusion between oriental and occidental culture.
Our guide will take you to inaccessible places: Santa Barbara, a real Byzantine church-basilica, Santa Maria della Valle, the greatest and most fascinating for the richness of the frescos, the church of the Madonna delle Virtu’, one of the few to be restored. From our guide’s stories you will understand how in Matera, between the ravines, values of ancient Greek and Latin communities entwine.
You will return to the hotel in the evening, where you will have dinner and spend the night.

THE SUGGESTIVE LOMBARD, SWABIAN, ANGIOIAN VILLAGES AND THE MEFITIS TEMPLE. You will have breakfast at the hotel and leave by private car and you will be guided to the discovery of Pietrapertosa, the highest municipality of Basilicata surrounded by an original landscape of unusual shapes: the Anvil, the Great Mother and the Royal Eagle. You will continue to Castelmezzano, ancient Lombard fort and one of the most characteristic villages under the Lucan Dolomites to then arrive to Castelmaggiore, the ancient village of Swabian origins that in 1268 rose against the Angioins. You will enter in its uninhabited historic centre, it will offer you the silence of suggestive oaths through abandoned buildings. Breaths of wind and traces of a disappeared life, due to a landslide in 1885, will get you in contact with nature in the path of time.
You will have lunch in a typical restaurant. In the afternoon you will go on an excursion in the forest of Capolicchio and you will go further to the Excavations of Vaglio. Other than the interesting prehistoric establishment, closed by a boundary of walls nearly seven kilometres long, you will discover the Lucan temple of the Goddess Meftis.
Here you will find a great altar, stretched in the midst of a churchyard, paved with great blocks of hard stone. You won’t believe the archaeological treasure that has come to light: geometrical ceramics and extremely fine potteries with scenes of warriors fighting.
You will have dinner and spend the night at the hotel in Potenza.

POTENZA BETWEEN HISTORY AND LEGEND. After breakfast at the hotel you will with our guide the historic centre of Potenza. Through its historic palaces you will discover its mysterious origins that get lost during the first centuries of the last millennium.
Born about year 1200, around a small convent of Basilian monks, it belonged to the Benedictine abbey of Lauria and then was property of the Rivello feud. In particular you will admire the Dome that, having been renovated in the ‘700s, still maintains the rosette at the front of the apse of the primitive construction of the XII century.
You will then linger in the ancient church of San Francesco, dated back to 1274, and in the Romanesque church of San Michele. After the touristic walk, a deserved lunch at a typical tavern will be waiting for you. You will taste delicious dishes prepared with genuine products: lasagne, homemade macaroni, Lucan pecorino cheese, cod with peppers, cakes and excellent wines. In the afternoon you will be transferred by private car to the airport or to the train station in Naples.

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