Pietrapertosa

Pietrapertosa sits at 1,088 meters, the highest commune in Basilicata, built directly into the sandstone teeth of the Piccole Dolomiti Lucane inside the Parco Regionale Gallipoli Cognato. The village is so wedded to the rock that several houses share a wall with the cliff. In the tenth century the fortified settlement was taken by a Saracen band led by a Greek convert to Islam named Luca, who used it as a raiding base across the surrounding valleys until the Catapan of Byzantium pushed him out.

The Arabata quarter, the warren of stone houses at the top of the village, still carries his name. The Castello Saraceno, partly cut into living rock, was later rebuilt by the Normans and Swabians. Pietrapertosa shares its setting with Castelmezzano on the opposite ridge, seven kilometers away, and the two villages are linked by the Volo dell'Angelo, a steel cable that carries passengers between them at speeds touching 120 kilometers per hour. The Chiesa di San Giacomo Maggiore in the centro preserves its fifteenth-century Romanesque structure.