Gravina di Ginosa

The Murgia is a limestone platform engraved by deep canyons called ravines, mostly present in the province of Taranto, one of these is located in Ginosa, a city that forms the border between Puglia and Basilicata and which was once a meeting point between the ancient Lucanian, Apulian and Greek peoples. Geographically harsh and tormented, it has been humanized by its inhabitants, who over the millennia have worked the rock creating rock dwellings. The Gravina di Ginosa surrounds and delimits the ancient and modern inhabited area, the excavated city and the built one, the first is located below, enclosed by dry stone walls that were used to protect themselves from the fury of the torrent; the second, at the top, is built with the same rock, supported by arches and vaults and from the stream bed it climbs up the hill. The mother church (built on an ancient cemetery) and the castle are memories of monks, saints and entire communities lived in hardship and fatigue; the signs of the men who lived on this rock in continuous contact with the nature that surrounded them and experiencing life in a cave. In the ancient streets we find the Mediterranean scrub, centuries-old olive trees, rock churches, tuff quarries, cisterns, cellars and underground oil mills and frescoes of saints.