Craco, the Lucanian village perched on the clay badlands

There are places that seem to hold their breath, and Craco is one of them. The old village climbs up a spur of clay that breaks away from the landscape like the prow of a ship, dominating the valleys between the Agri and Cavone rivers, in the province of Matera. All around, the badlands: folds of bare earth, whitish and cracked, which the summer sun sets ablaze and winter turns almost lunar. And at the top, the empty houses, the tower, the roofless churches.

A ghost town

Craco is a ghost town, but its story is recent and concrete. The village, inhabited since the Middle Ages, was progressively abandoned from the 1960s onward because of recurring landslides that undermined its stability. One great landslide in particular, that of 1963, forced the inhabitants to move further down the valley; the Irpinia earthquake of 1980 did the rest. What remains is a village crystallised, fragile, where the earth slowly keeps reclaiming what man had built.

The visit

Today you can visit only with a guide, wearing a helmet and following secured routes, precisely because the ruins are unstable. Do not expect widespread tourist services or restaurants among the alleys: you walk, you listen to the wind, you look. In 2010 Craco was placed on the watch list of the World Monuments Fund, a recognition of its value and its fragility. Its unsettling photogenic quality has also made it a film set, but you will meet few people, in flesh and blood.

And this is the point. A few kilometres away is Matera, with its famous and crowded Sassi; here, instead, silence still rules. To visit Craco is to choose the reverse of mass tourism: slowness, respect, attention. Book an official guided tour, wear suitable shoes, bring water and detach nothing from the walls.

When to go

The best months are spring and early autumn, when the light is soft and the heat of the badlands becomes bearable. Leave the car, raise your eyes toward the tower and let yourself be surprised by an Italy that, suspended on the clay, still knows how to fall silent.

Related guides: An alternative to Matera: 7 towns of stone and rock in the South to discover · Basilicata without a car in 3 days: Matera, the Murgia and the Lucanian Dolomites.

Getting there

Old Craco, the abandoned village, is reached practically only by car: public transport is scarce and does not reach the old village, which is visited on a guided basis. Arriving from Matera or Potenza, the route is well signposted among the badlands. The nearest railway station is Pisticci Scalo, while the reference airport is Bari, from which you continue inland into Basilicata about an hour and a half by road.

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