A great hiking route will take us to discover the towns of southern Italy.
the south of Italy It has never been a very touristic region, even taking into account the fame of towns such as Matera , declared a World Heritage Site in 1993 and European Capital of Culture in 2019, or Alberobello with its trulli. The tourism that this region has always wanted to attract is a slower one, based on sustainability and for those people who appreciate historical places and good traditional gastronomy.
With this philosophy is born the Materano Road , a path that emerged thanks to the association In Itinere after a pilgrim on the French Camino de Santiago asked them why they could not walk on a route through southern Italy. It was true that you could walk, obviously, but there was no route and marked paths, when really a great path could be created that would show the world its towns and natural beauties.
And so Cammino Materano was born, which, as its name indicates, part of the town of Matera on a secondary Roman road system , medieval streets, paths and sheep trails, with the aim of traversing the unknown places of southern Italy to reach the heart of a territory, now considered marginal, but which for millennia has been a central point of balance for different populations and cultures. .
Matera, the starting point of the Cammino Materano.
"In this sense, the Cammino Materano is a spiritual path , and resistance against the frenzy of modernity: slowness is in fact the true destiny, the key to understanding oneself and the surrounding world. Because only on foot is it possible to fully know and understand what is inside and outside of us ; and only traveling on foot is it possible to get in touch with the true essence of the territory, understood as nature and history, human relations, food and wine and hospitality”, they point out from their website.
The trail has six different routes , all dedicated to the pre-Roman populations of southern Italy, with the exception of Via Sveva, dedicated to the extraordinary figure of Federico II. Basilicata, Apulia and Campania These are the three regions through which Via Peuceta, Via Ellenica, Via Ionic, Via Sveva, Via Dauna and Via Lucana run.
Currently only available Source: Peuceta , 160 kilometers long, connecting Matera with the city of Bari. Via Ellenica , on the other hand, is in its final stage of construction. In 290 kilometers and fifteen stops, you will drive from Brindisi to Matera, passing through two UNESCO World Heritage Sites (Matera itself and the Alberobello trulli) as well as the Terra delle Gravine Natural Park.
Another of the curiosities of the road is that travelers will have a certificate, called Testimony, as the credential of the Santiago's road , which will testify that they have completed at least 100 km of the route.