Ofanto - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

Castel del Monte, located in the municipality of Andria, rises on a rocky hill dominating the surrounding countryside of the Murgia region in southern Italy near the Adriatic Sea. A unique piece of medieval architecture, it was completed in 1240. Because of its relatively small size, it was once considered to be no more than a "hunting lodge", but scholars now believe it originally had a curtain wall and did serve as a citadel.

The Alta Murgia National Park, abbreviated to PnAM, is a national park established in 2004 located in Puglia, in the provinces of Bari and Barletta-Andria-Trani. The administrative headquarters of the Park are in Gravina in Puglia, in Via Firenze n. 10. The park has an extension of 68,033 hectares. It extends in the highest part of the north-west Murge plateau. It coincides with a part of the largest special protection area established to protect the steppe to grasses, the habitat of the lesser

The Altopiano delle Murge is a rectangular karst topographic plateau in southern Italy. Most of it is within Apulia and corresponds to the sub-region known as Murgia or Le Murge. The plateau is mainly located in the metropolitan city of Bari and the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, but extends into the provinces of Brindisi and Taranto to the south, and in Matera in Basilicata to the west. The name is believed to come from Latinmurex, which means "sharpened stone".

The castle of Melfi is a monument of Basilicata owned by the Italian state, among the most important medieval castles in Italy. Its foundation, at least from the elements still visible, dates back to the Norman period and has undergone some changes over time, especially in the Angevin and Aragonese periods. The castle of Melfi is a monument of Basilicata owned by the Italian state, one of the most important castles medieval buildings of Italy.

Built-in the Norman period, it is located on a peak about 15 km from Genzano di Lucania. The castle dominates a vast valley which was an important hinge between the territories of the Bradano dominated by the Byzantines and the northern territories of Basilicata dominated by the Lombards and Normans. Conceived by the Normans as a defensive system, it was the scene of a battle between Normans and Byzantines in which the latter were defeated.

The isolated Monte Vulture is a stratovolcano with a summit caldera and a few parasitic cones that erupted lavas and pyroclastics covering 150 km2. The volcano was constructed on a ridge; the valley to the east and tributaries to the north and south became sediment traps for volcaniclastic materials emplaced by fluvial reworking and directly from volcanic activity.