Alta Murgia National Park

The Alta Murgia National Park is a nature reserve in Apulia. It is characterized by fascinating landscapes, where among rocky ridges, sinkholes, karstic caves and oak woods, you can see stone farmhouses, with fences and stables for flocks of sheep, cultivated fields, little churches and endless networks of dry-stone walls.

Understand
The Murgia is a karstic plateau in Italy that extends across the border between Apulia and Basilicata, and the Alta Murgia National Park is located in the south-west of Apulia region.

Landscape
It is a great place for nature lovers and hiking enthusiasts, but also for those who are interested in history. Indeed, here people can re-live a medieval atmosphere, thanks to the presence of castles dating back to the period of Norman-Swabian domination, such as the majestic Castel del Monte, and they can travel with their imagination even further back in time, to discover the life of primitive men and dinosaurs. The plateau has, in fact, numerous traces of the presence of man since prehistory, such as cave paintings, dolmens, skeletons, but also the footprints of great reptiles near Altamura.

Flora and fauna
The Murgia landscape is deeply rooted in history: emperors, farmers, shepherds and lumberjacks have been living here for centuries and they have managed to cultivate and settle in one of the most remarkable Mediterranean areas. However, the landscape has its peculiarities for each season. For instance, in spring you can easily see wild tulips flourishing and long green fields of wheat, but also orchids, whereas in autumn or in winter you will certainly admire cyclamens and hawthorns. If you get lost here, try to be as relaxed as possible: thanks to the smell of the thyme and the mint, you will feel like you are having the best time of your life! Here you will definitely enjoy the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets you could ever ask for.

The Alta Murgia National Park is famous in Italy for its great variety of animal and plant species. Indeed, many trees are visible in the  Murgia  area, especially the ones belonging to the oak family: holm oaks, Turkey oaks and Quercus frainetto, while the most common trees in the pinewoods are the Aleppo Pine and the cypress. Hundreds of animal species live here; this is why the fauna of the National Park is considered one of the most peculiar and interesting of Apulia: birds, amphibians and mammals live together in a perfect symbiosis:
 * Birds: brachydactyla (from the Latin name Calandrella brachydactyla), larks, red kites and many species of hawks, among which there is the typical Falco Grillaio (its Latin name is Falco Naumanni, one of the most important birds in the area). Other birds are the barn owl and the owl.
 * Amphibians and reptiles: tritons, geckos, vipers, green lizards and tortoises.
 * Mammals: foxes, weasels, badgers, wild boars and sometimes wolves too.

Do
The Alta Murgia National Park is a corner of paradise for trekking and cycling enthusiasts.

Go next
Altamura is one of the biggest cities in the area. It is the main city in the Alta Murgia National Park which covers the two southern regions of Apulia and Basilicata, and it is known especially for its famous bread that acquired the DOP labelling (in Italian Denominazione di Origine Protetta, a Quality assurance label), recognized all over the world. Moreover, the city hosts one of the most beautiful Cathedrals in the region, that is the Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral, built by order of the Emperor Frederick II during the XIII century. That is why every year Altamura honors the emperor with the Federicus festival, hosted every May: it is a medieval reenactment with people dressed up in the traditional costumes of that period, celebrating banquets and ceremonies that really transform the historical center into a wonderful medieval city. Geographically, Altamura has a strategic position, because it is very close to two other important Southern Italian towns: Gravina in Puglia and Matera.

14 kilometers from Altamura, Gravina in Puglia, most of the time simply called Gravina, is an Apulian town that is also part of the Murgia landscape and another important center in the Alta Murgia National Park; its name comes from the Italian name gravina, which basically means canyon. You should visit this town because it a large number of movies were made here. Many Italian directors and actors have been here to shoot their movies that have become milestones of the Italian culture: think about Sophia Loren in the movie C’era una volta (More than a miracle, in English) or Gian Maria Volonté and the movie Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (Christ stopped at Eboli), both directed by Francesco Rosi. Rai1 too, the national Italian TV channel, shot different TV series here like Pane e Libertà (2009) with the famous Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino or Il capitano Maria (2017) with the famous Spanish-Italian actress Vanessa Incontrada. Last but not the least, in 2019 the movie from the 007 saga No time to die, with Daniel Craig and Léa Seydoux, was shot here, with a spectacular jump from the famous Ponte Acquedotto Madonna della Stella.

The Bridge Acquedotto Madonna della Stella, also known as Ponte della Gravina (184, Federico Mennini Street, Gravina in Puglia), is a famous bridge included in the so called Luoghi del cuore (Places of the heart) listed by the Italian cultural association FAI Fondo Ambiente Italiano for its historical and cultural background. Few things are known about it, but it is for sure that it already existed in the XVII century and collapsed some years later due to an earthquake, then rebuilt by order of the Roman family Orsini who lived there during the XVIII century (Gravina was at that time part of their feudal land). They wanted to rebuild it as aqueduct able to conduct the waters from the water sources Sant’Angelo and San Giacomo under the city walls.

Matera, (La città dei Sassi, from the ancient town) in the bordering region of Basilicata, is another must if you visit Altamura, only 17 kilometers away from the Apulian town. Like Gravina in Puglia, Matera is known throughout the world for the numerous movies shot here dating back to the 60’s with the famous Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel according to St. Matthew) by the writer and director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Matera was at the center of other important movie productions, like The Passion of the Christ by Mel Gibson (2004), Ben Hur (2016) by Timur Bekmambetov, Wonder Woman (2017) by Patty Jenkins and the last 007 movie No Time to die (2019) by Cary Fukunaga.

Despite these important movie productions, Matera became famous around the world thanks to UNESCO, which pronounced the town a world heritage site, for its history, culture and local traditions, in 1993. From that moment, the ancient town, the Sassi, was restored and tourists started going to Matera to explore the ancient glory of this little town. If you go to Matera, you cannot miss the magnificent Apulian-Romanesque cathedral of Madonna della Bruna e di Sant’Eustachio, the two Patron Saints of the town, in the old area of Sassi. The Sassi are actually made up of two ancient districts, the Sasso Caveoso, which is the district overlooking the caves, and the Sasso Barisano, the one geographically overlooking the city of Bari. Both of them are a real testimony of how our ancestors lived; for this reason, do not miss the Casa Grotta di Vico Solitario, where it is shown everything about the old lifestyle in the Sassi districts, from the beds where they used to sleep to the tools used in the fields.

Matera is also known for the great quantity of rupestrian churches and crypts (they are at least 150), where ancient frescoes of the lives of the Saints are the real protagonists. Not to be missed are some of the most important rupestrian churches like the wonderful Santa Lucia alle Malve, Santa Maria de Idris and Convicinio di Sant’Antonio, in the Sasso Caveoso district. If you want to visit another important rupestrian church, then some kilometers away from the town you can visit the restored Crypt of the Original Sin, where there are frescos in the Lombard style.