The Via Appia, the queen of roads, ran from Rome to Brindisi, and in Basilicata it crossed the upland of the upper Bradano valley, a high, open country of wheat fields and rolling hills, near the towns of Venosa and Palazzo San Gervasio. In 2024 the Via Appia was listed as a World Heritage Site along its whole length, and here, in the empty farmland, the line of the road can be traced in field boundaries and tracks, with occasional fragments of paving and the ruins of way stations.
Venosa, eight kilometres away, was the Roman colony of Venusia, and the poet Horace was born here in 65 BC. The town has a castle, a cathedral and the remarkable Abbey of the Santissima Trinità, an unfinished Romanesque church built on Roman and early Christian foundations, whose open, roofless nave is one of the most atmospheric sites in southern Italy. A Jewish catacomb outside town is among the earliest evidence of Jewish life in the region.
The Vulture, an extinct volcano to the west, is the source of Aglianico del Vulture, one of the finest red wines of the south, and of mineral waters bottled at its foot. Melfi, on its slopes, has a mighty Norman castle where the emperor Frederick II issued his Constitutions of Melfi in 1231.
The riding in this part of Basilicata is a pleasure: empty roads across rolling hills, with long views and gentle bends, and more challenging roads climbing the Vulture and into the mountains to the south. Traffic is very light, surfaces are mostly decent though potholes appear, and the summer heat can be intense on the open plateau. Spring, when the wheat is green, and early autumn are the best times.
Venosa has pumps, cafés and shops, and Palazzo San Gervasio and Maschito are smaller towns with basic facilities. Maschito, interestingly, is one of the Arbëreshë villages of southern Italy, founded by Albanian refugees in the fifteenth century, where an old form of Albanian is still spoken. Local food includes pasta with peperoni cruschi, crisp dried peppers, and lamb.