The pepper of Senise, called Źafaran in dialect, has carried IGP status since 1996 and is the reason the town is known outside Basilicata: dried, it becomes crusco, brittle and crisp, and from there it enters half the peasant cooking of Lucania.
The coat of arms shows a she-wolf suckling a child, as in Siena, and tradition tells of a knight from Siena who founded the place on his way to the Crusades; the documents, unfortunately, show Senise was already there. The name more likely means place of the Sinni, the river dammed here at Monte Cotugno, the largest earth-fill dam in Europe. The population is 7,127.
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📅 Every year, on 16 August
Senise celebrates Saint Roch on 16 August; the town, developed in Norman times below a medieval castle, is now famous for the Senise peppers, dried until «crusco», crisp, and fried in hot oil.
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 Senise, but an easy day trip away.
