Tuesday October 8th

Pietrapertosa and Castelmezzano

We had a short break in Pietrapertosa in Basilicata, the furthest south that we'd ever been in Italy. The town is perched below a spectacular escarpment and across a valley from Castelmezzano (also below the escarpment, but nowhere near as impressive.

Pietrapertosa on the evening of our arrival
...and catching the last rays of the sun
Fresh in the morning
Local resident

We decided to take one of the walks suggested on the web between the two villages. The path was punctuated by strange stone structures.

Some of the structures had loudspeakers concealed in piles of rock playing a variety of soundtracks ranging from the howling of wolves to religious chanting. The stream at the bottom of the valley separating the two towns was spanned by a rather picturesque bridge.

From time to time we found wild cyclamen flowers on the side of the path.

We had a coffee and a cold drink when we arrived in Castelmezzano, after which we returned the same way as we'd come.

A walk of 4.6 miles with 470m ascent.


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