Alternatives to
Alternatives to Matera: every small town in Basilicata, in one list
30 towns · 1 region · the complete list
Castelmezzano, Basilicata
Matera went from national shame to Capital of Culture in a generation and now has boutique hotels in the caves. The region around it did not, and it is the emptiest, highest, most dramatic corner of the south: villages on rock towers, a coast with one town on it, a national park bigger than some regions.
This is every Basilicata town in our catalogue, 30 of them, with Matera itself removed. Best-recognised first.
Instead of Matera
Matera · 59,685 residents · Basilicata
- CastelmezzanoPotenza
Mountain town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Matera
- 1h 28m by car
- Residents
- 710
- When to go
- May–Oct
- Guardia PerticaraPotenza
Mountain town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Matera
- 1h 41m by car
- Residents
- 517
- When to go
- May–Oct
- MarateaPotenza
Coastal town · Borghi più belli d'Italia
- From Matera
- 2h 56m by car
- By train
- Reachable
- Residents
- 4,725
- When to go
- May–Sep
- San FelePotenza
Mountain town · Borgo dei Borghi
- From Matera
- 1h 51m by car
- Residents
- 2,600
- When to go
- May–Oct
- Sasso di CastaldaPotenza
Mountain town · Bandiera Arancione
- From Matera
- 1h 54m by car
- Residents
- 733
- When to go
- May–Oct
The 5 best-recognised of the 30 towns that match. Drive times measured by road from Matera. More of them follow below.
Castelmezzano
Province: Potenza · 750 m
A medieval village wedged into sandstone teeth at 750 meters, linked to Pietrapertosa by a 1,452-meter zipline since 2007.
Guardia Perticara
Province: Potenza · 678 m
The stone village at 678 meters above the Sauro valley, rebuilt block by block in Gorgoglione sandstone after the 1980 earthquake.
Maratea
Province: Potenza · 300 m
Basilicata's only commune on the Tyrrhenian, thirty-two kilometers of rocky coast overlooked by a marble Christ raised inland in 1965.
San Fele
Province: Potenza · 872 m
A stone village at 872 meters between two peaks, where a 969 fortress and ten waterfalls along the Bradano still define the place.
Sasso di Castalda
Province: Potenza · 949 m
A 949-meter village in the Lucanian Apennines whose emigrants produced the engineer who launched Apollo 11, now crossed by a 300-meter Tibetan footbridge.
Pietrapertosa
Province: Potenza · 1,088 m
Basilicata's highest commune at 1,088 meters, built into the Lucanian Dolomites with a Saracen rock-cut fortress and a 1,400-meter zipline to Castelmezzano.
Rivello
Province: Potenza · 479 m
A 479-meter ridge above the Noce valley where Lombards and Byzantines lived side by side, holding Latin and Greek rites until the seventeenth century.
Aliano
Province: Matera · 555 m
The clay-hill village at 555 meters above the Agri valley where Carlo Levi served his 1935 exile and is buried in the cemetery.
Valsinni
Province: Matera · 250 m
A 1,344-resident Lucanian borgo on a hilltop above the Sinni river, where a 16th-century Renaissance poet was murdered by her brothers in 1545, marked today by a Touring Club Bandiera Arancione and a place inside the Pollino park.
Acerenza
Province: Potenza · 833 m
A walled ridge town at 833 meters in the north Lucanian hills, archbishopric since 1068 under a Romanesque cathedral begun in 1080.
The rest of the 30
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- 19.Lagonegro
- 20.Nova Siri
- 21.Bernalda
- 22.Grottole
- 23.San Mauro Forte
- 24.Terranova di Pollino
- 25.Viggiano
- 26.Calvello
- 27.Melfi
- 28.Rotondella
- 29.Sant'Angelo Le Fratte
- 30.Craco
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