Castelmezzano

Perhaps the best time to arrive in Castelmezzano is in the evening, when the lights of the village are turned on and, in the splendid natural setting that embraces them, they seem to create a tiny and perfect nativity scene. The village is part of the Parco delle Dolomiti Lucane (Lucanian Dolomites Park): all around, wild rocks and green forests. It is precisely the trees that are the protagonists of the arboreal ritual of the May Festival, also known as the Marriage of Trees, when a trunk of a turkey oak is transported by pairs of oxen to the village and then raised and 'married' to the top, a holly carried on the shoulders of young people. Finally, for the more courageous, there is the Flight of the Angel, a 'journey' hanging from a sturdy steel cable and tied by a harness: one starts from here and arrives at Pietrapertosa (or vice versa) and in the 'flight' one admires the panorama of the Dolomites in all its beauty.