On 8 November 1861 Crocco's bands were heading for Craco when halfway there they met a procession: women and children led by the priest Colla Croce, come to ask mercy for their town. Crocco wrote that mercy was granted; Borjes, in his diary, noted that there were disorders anyway, and not a few.
The old centre of Craco is empty: a landslide began emptying it in 1963 and by the start of the eighties it was a ghost town. Today people come to look at it, and films are shot in it; in 2010 it entered the watch list of the World Monuments Fund. The name comes from the Latin Graculum, little ploughed field, and dates from 1060. There are 766 residents.
Craco Ghost Town
Pane di Matera
24 places to stay · top rated: Residenza delle Grazie 9.9 · Hotel Ristorante Mariano 9.6
Festivals, food fairs and events throughout the year.
Nearest airport: Bari Palese, 89 km away
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📅 Every year, on the second Saturday of October
On the second Saturday of October Craco celebrates Saint Nicholas. It is the feast of a town whose old centre has stood empty since the 1960s, emptied by a landslide and left a ghost town.
Durum wheat semolina, thick crust, shaped as a horn or a tall loaf: Pane di Matera has held Protected Geographical Indication status since 2008.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Craco, but an easy day trip away.
