The Mercure valley was a lake through the whole Pleistocene. When the water drained away towards the sea it left limestone crags behind, and the old centre of Rotonda stands on one of them; another carries the hamlet of Acqua Nocella. The name, though, is said to come from the houses set in a ring around the castle, which from a distance made a single round block.
It is the southernmost comune in Basilicata and hosts the headquarters of the Pollino national park. The red aubergine is grown here, the only Ethiopian aubergine produced in Europe in any quantity: round, red, and from a distance it looks like a tomato. There are 3,519 residents.
santuario di Santa Maria della Consolazione
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Next up: Saint Anthony and the «tree marriage» in the woods of the Pollino, Sunday 13 June
Nearest airport: Lamezia Terme, 118 km away
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📅 Every year, from 8 to 13 June, and the Consolazione on 18 August
Rotonda celebrates Saint Anthony of Padua from 8 to 13 June with the «tree marriage», the rite in which a beech tree, pulled by thirteen pairs of oxen, is joined to the top of a fir tree at the foot of the saint's statue; on 18 August the Madonna della Consolazione is celebrated instead.
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