Riserva Naturale
Riserva Naturale in Basilicata
8 towns
Basilicata has 8 Riserva Naturale communes in our index. They cluster in the Matera and Potenza provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Matera, Accettura, and Grottole. 5 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Matera
Province: Matera · 401 m
Cave dwellings carved into limestone since the Paleolithic, called the shame of Italy in the 1950s and made European Capital of Culture in 2019.
Accettura
Province: Matera · 770 m
A 770-meter village in the Gallipoli Cognato park where, each Pentecost, a Turkey oak is married to a holly tree.
Grottole
Province: Matera · 481 m
A hilltop borgo at 481 meters between the Bradano and Basento, where six hundred empty houses outnumber residents in the centro storico.
Lagonegro
Province: Potenza · 666 m
A 666-meter Valle del Noce town founded by Byzantine monks, where local legend places the burial of Lisa del Giocondo, Leonardo's Mona Lisa.
Miglionico
Province: Matera · 461 m
A hilltop borgo at 461 meters above the Bradano, the seven-tower castle that gave the 1485 Conspiracy of the Barons its hall.
Policoro
Province: Matera · 25 m
A Ionian-coast town on the Gulf of Taranto built on the ruins of the Greek polis of Heraclea — birthplace of the Tavole di Eraclea bronze inscriptions and home to one of the region's most-visited Bandiera Blu beaches and the National Museum of the Siritide.
Bernalda
Province: Matera · 127 m
A 127-meter hill town between the Bradano and Basento, Francis Ford Coppola's ancestral home, holding the Magna Graecia columns of the Tavole Palatine.
Rotondella
Province: Matera · 576 m
The 'Balcony of the Ionian' — a 2,400-resident Lucanian borgo on a 576m hilltop overlooking the Metapontino plain and the Ionian Sea, with intact medieval streets, the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Neve, and a high-quality DOP olive oil from the surrounding terraced groves.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Putignano
Province: Bari
Europe's longest-running carnival — Putignano Carnevale has run continuously since 1394, with 631 years of cartapesta papier-mâché floats, a 26,000-resident Murgia town on the Bari–Lecce plateau, and the Grotta del Trullo karst cave inside the centro.
Pistoia
Province: Pistoia
Italy's nursery capital and the medieval Tuscan rival that gave its name to the pistol — a quietly extraordinary centro storico of zebra-striped Romanesque churches, Andrea della Robbia's polychrome frieze on the Ospedale del Ceppo, and Italy's Capital of Culture 2017, all 30 minutes from Florence by train.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Caldes
Province: Trento
A scattered Val di Sole commune on the Noce, six hamlets gathered around a thirteenth-century tower-house castle that once belonged to the Thun family.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.