We are proud to be partnering with Adele Newton, whose family emigrated from Pisticci to Canada, for our first Basilicata tour, a tour that celebrates the people who have always lived in Basilicata, and the people who are choosing to come here, to make it their home. Lucania has always been a crossroads, shaped by everyone from the Greeks to the Bourbons. Now the Lucani of the diaspora are writing a new chapter.

Boutique room at Torre Fiore farmhouse hotel in Pisticci
Torre Fiore, Pisticci

You’ll find Adele’s tour here. You’ll stay at Torre Fiore, a farmhouse in Pisticci restored to a luxury hotel by the Giannone family—Lucani who emigrated to Toronto, then returned to build something that honors where they came from, and who they have become. The April tour is sold out, but there are still spots available for the October tour, which coincides with the Feast of San Vincenzo, the patron saint of Craco.

We’d love to work with other Lucani to craft tours that honor their stories and their communities.

Stories

View from the top of the ghost town of Craco over the Basilicata Calanchi

You need a place

“You need a place, if only for the pleasure of leaving it. A place means not being alone —knowing that in the people, in the plants, in the earth, there is something of yours, that even when you’re not there, it stays and waits for you.” — Cesare Pavese, La luna e i falò, 1950. […]

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The white houses of Pisticci, Basilicata

Pisticci

Pisticci is my family's home town — a journey through personal memory, ancient history, and the white houses of Basilicata.

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Matera, from an Italian.

Matera, from an Italian.

Giuditta visited Matera for the first time on a research trip for the upcoming Basilicata tour. As an Italian seeing this town for the first time, she was honestly speechless.

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Joe Rinaldi's birthplace house in the Ghost Town of Craco, Basilicata

Craco Lives Within Us

A personal reflection on leaving Craco, carrying its traditions to Canada, and the enduring spirit of a town that lives on through its people.

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Amdrea pouring olive oil into a small cup in Mantenera, Basilicata

A Passion for Olive Oil

One of the parts of my work that excites me the most is meeting farmers and makers, the people who keep Italy’s oldest traditions alive in their own way. Their stories always leave me inspired, and often with a new perspective on what it means to live intentionally. When I began looking for a small-scale […]

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Stone archway in the Ghost Town of Craco with hills of Basilicata visible through it

Basilicata moodboard

Giuditta just got back from a research trip to Basilicata for a tour she's organizing with her friend Adele. First impressions, mood, and the feeling of a region that is ready to be discovered.

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People & places

The white houses of Pisticci on a hilltop in Basilicata

Pisticci

Pisticci—the White City—is at the heart of our Basilicata tour. Adele Newton's parents emigrated from here. The town was founded 3,000 years ago, and it's still standing.

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The Sassi of Matera at blue hour

Matera

People have lived in these caves for almost 10,000 years. Our guests spend two nights here, sleeping in a hotel cut into the Sassi rock, and kneading and baking the ancient Pane de Matera bread with local bakers.

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The village of Castelmezzano clinging to the sandstone pinnacles of the Dolomiti Lucane

Castelmezzano

You enter through a tunnel carved into the rock face. When you come out the other side, a medieval village is clinging to sandstone pinnacles above you. One of Italy's Most Beautiful Villages.

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The Chiesa Madre (Mother Church) of Policoro

Policoro

The last day of the tour. After a week of mountains and hill towns, we come down to the Ionian coast, and lunch overlooking the sea.

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Suite room at Dimore dell'Idris carved into the rock with stone floor and open doorway

Dimore dell'Idris

This is an albergo diffuso—a hotel of rooms carved into the raw rock. You sleep like the ancient Materani, except with a first-class upgrade!

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Pina Caruso in her gelato shop in Castelmezzano

Gelateria Caruso

Pina Caruso is the most genuine and generous gelato-maker I know. Her family has made gelato since 1926, and her award-winning Acheruntino—milk cream with vin cotto, toasted almonds, and toasted Matera bread—is the taste of Basilicata.

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The Lucanian Calanchi landscape of Basilicata with bare clay gullies and ridges

Lucanian Calanchi

The defining landscape of inner Basilicata— bare clay gullies, razor-thin ridges, and pale eroded slopes. The unstable clay that Craco was built on, and that betrayed it.

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The village of Castelmezzano at dusk with illuminated houses against the Lucanian Dolomites sandstone cliffs

Lucanian Dolomites

Sandstone spires that glow amber at dusk and pink at dawn. Two medieval villages — Castelmezzano and Pietrapertosa — cling to the cliffs among formations named the Golden Eagle, the Anvil, and the Lion's Mouth.

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View of Maratea town on the Gulf of Policastro with the Tyrrhenian Sea beyond

Maratea

A town on the Gulf of Policastro, with the turquoise waters of the Tyrrhenian sea and volcanic black sand beaches. And a Cristo Redentore.

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Monte Vulture, the extinct volcano rising above the Basilicata landscape

Il Vulture

An extinct volcano in northern Basilicata. Its ancient lava flows created the soils that produce Aglianico del Vulture — one of Italy's great red wines. Twin crater lakes, a cliff-face abbey, brigand trails, and the underground cellars of Barile.

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Panoramic view of San Fele village between two mountains in the Vulture region

San Fele

A stone village perched between two mountains in the Vulture. Population crashed from 10,000 to 3,000 through emigration. Danny DeVito's grandparents left from here. Ten waterfalls, a sanctuary celebrated since 1139 AD, and the banner that flew at the first Italian festa in America.

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Aerial view of Torre Fiore boutique hotel at dusk, white buildings around a courtyard in Pisticci

Masseria Torre Fiore

A 16th-century masseria in Pisticci, restored by the Giannone family — Lucani who emigrated to Toronto and came back to build something. Your home base on the Basilicata tour.

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Panoramic view of Potenza, the highest regional capital in Italy

Potenza

Italy's highest regional capital at 819 metres, overlooking the Basento Valley. A city of staircases, medieval churches, and the National Archaeological Museum.

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Guests baking Pani di Matera bread with baker Enzo at Il Forno di Gennaro in Matera

Il Forno di Gennaro

A family bakery in Matera since 1890. You knead, shape, and bake your own Pane di Matera with Patrizia, Sabrina, and master baker Enzo. In the Sassi, women made five-kilo loaves and stamped them with their family's initials before carrying them to the communal ovens.

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Panoramic view of the hilltop village of Castelgrande in Basilicata with terraced buildings

Castelgrande

A tiny mountain village of 740 people with a National Geographic food feature, a saffron initiative, and a Montreal diaspora.

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Panoramic view of Aglianico vineyards with rolling hills of Basilicata

Azienda Agricola Elena Fucci

Her family was about to sell the vineyard. Elena said no — and turned six hectares on an extinct volcano into one of Italy's great wines.

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Panoramic view of the town of Palazzo San Gervasio with surrounding trees in Basilicata

Palazzo San Gervasio

Named after Frederick II's 13th-century hunting palace. A city surrounded by wheat, tomatoes, Aglianico vines, peppers and olive trees.

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Mantenera Essenza olive oil bottle with BIOL Novello 2025 award on fresh olives

Azienda Agricola Mantenera

Andrea was riding his motorbike across Italy looking for a place to start over. A country road led him to an ancient olive grove with a Vendesi sign. Some of the trees are 380 years old. He stayed.

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Podolico Reale, the Vaccaro family's farm in the mountains above Brindisi Montagna, Basilicata

Podolico Reale

Mariantonietta Vaccaro could have done a chemistry doctorate. She chose her family's herd of wild Podolica cows above Brindisi Montagna — and the four-generation art of caciocavallo podolico.

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Ghost town of Craco ruins at sunset with Calanchi badlands in the background

Craco

A medieval town abandoned on a clay cliff — but its people, the Crachesi, are alive, in the valley below and scattered across the world. This is their story, and the story of their patron saint, San Vincenzo.

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