Astronomy, art and landscape in the villages, immersive workshops, tours in the parks and gardens among wild herbs and flowers, fairy tales and magic: Basilicata opens up to experiential tourism where you can live and share your passions.
Outside the usual tourist routes, the region reveals new aspects, careful to rediscover places of true anthropological beauty, culture and tradition.
There are many possibilities to dedicate yourself to regenerating activities on holiday, immersing yourself in nature, rediscovering the charm of traditions, tasting typical dishes and practicing outdoor sports.
With its incredible biodiversity, safeguarded and protected by two national parks, three regional parks and nature reserves, Lucania is the ideal place to discover wild herbs, flowers and medicinal plants during excursions with experts in alimurgia, the science that studies the use of edible wild plants, better known today as 'foraging'.
To delve deeper into the topic, you can visit the Conservatory of Ethnobotany and Hortus Basiliano of Castelluccio Superiore, custodian of Mediterranean biodiversity, a garden of medicinal plants which includes around 150, mostly native ones;
the Color Park of Castelgrande (PZ) dedicated to the famous botanist Guglielmo Gasparrini with a 'Butterfly House', inside which there are specimens of live butterflies in a tropical micro habitat.
And, again, the Sanseverino botanical garden in Grumento Nova and the Pomarico herb house to learn and distinguish wild herbs.
Basilicata is also the ideal land to clearly admire the stars at night in the countryside, in the mountains or in the surroundings of small perched villages.
Here, light pollution is very low, with dark skies that allow you to feel in direct connection with the universe;
there are various methods: the Anzi astronomical observatory, among the most accredited in Italy for scientific and astronomical dissemination, where it is possible to admire around 4,500 stars of the northern and southern sky;
the Museum of Science and Space - Sparkme Space Academy in Matera, a scientific dissemination site that offers immersive visits to the world of science and space;
the Castelgrande Space Debris Observatory, at 1,258 meters above sea level, with 2 domes and the same number of telescopes.
There is another original and exciting aspect, which concerns the discovery of the mysterious and ancestral territory, through fairy tales and magic.
Here the journey starts from Rapone, the 'land of fairy tales', and from a book 'Lo Cunto de Li Cunti' written in 1600 by the Neapolitan Giambattista Basile who, inspired by the Lucanian territory, collected and translated numerous popular tales.
The event organized in the village, Rapone Fiaba Festival, is also a community project where, through an artistic-cultural journey, new life is given to the most beautiful fairy tales of all time.
And, again, the route of the five fairy tales, the 'Once upon a time' multimedia museum and the adventure park with routes dedicated to the fairy tale characters.
We then continue towards Albano di Lucania, the 'town of magic' already at the center of studies during Ernesto De Martino's expeditions to Lucania in the 1950s, with the ritual route 'La Rocca del Cappello', passing through Colobraro, with the engaging initiative 'Dream of a night in that town', to reach Agromonte, the town of riddles, among the peaks of the Pollino National Park,
declared a UNESCO natural heritage site in 2015.
Here it is possible to admire the loricated pine defined by many as the 'living fossil' or the 'dinosaur of trees', the undisputed protagonist of this magical and fantastic scenario.
And then there are the experiential workshops that combine outdoor activities and the discovery of new places, ancient traditions and tasty typical dishes: in Lavello the 'Bloom essence of nature', coinciding with the flowering of the numerous lavender fields;
the Grottole workshops to learn the art of the master cheesemaker and create your own cheese;
and also the ceramic and papier-mâché workshops and the photo-trapping courses in the Pollino National Park with Ceas operators.
On the ancient sheep tracks you go for a ride on donkeys with the farmers;
with guides certified by the Forest Therapy Institute, however, you immerse yourself in forest baths to discover the forest through the senses, to benefit from the presence of the trees from a psychological and physiological point of view.
For more information: basilicataturistica.it