How to get here, and how long it really takes

Basilicata is the only Italian region without a commercial airport and with a rail network that barely touches its edges. In practical terms: you arrive by car, and the two main destinations, the Ionian coast and Maratea, sit on opposite sides of the Apennines and are not reached by the same road. So the first decision to make is which way you are going.

For the Ionian coast

The reference is the SS106 Jonica, which runs parallel to the sea from Taranto to Reggio Calabria and serves, one after another, Metaponto, Scanzano Jonico, Policoro and Nova Siri: almost all the campsites are a few kilometres from one of its exits. From the north you leave the A14 motorway at Taranto; from the west you come down the A2 del Mediterraneo and cut across to the Ionian at Sicignano or Lauria, depending on where you are heading.

The useful airports are the ones in Puglia: from Bari to Metaponto allow about an hour and three quarters, from Brindisi a little over two hours. From Naples it is about three hours, all motorway apart from the last stretch.

For Maratea

Maratea is on the other side and is reached from the A2 del Mediterraneo, Lagonegro exit, then some twenty kilometres of road dropping to the sea. Anyone travelling by motorhome should bear in mind that the Maratea coast road is narrow, full of hairpins and with plenty of stretches where passing is not comfortable: better to arrive in daylight and unhurried, not at dusk.

By train there is Maratea station on the Tyrrhenian line, served by some regional trains and a few long-distance ones: it is one of the rare places in the region where the train is genuinely an alternative.

For Matera

Matera has a station on the Ferrovie Appulo Lucane with frequent connections from Bari, but it is not on the national rail network: arriving by train from further afield means changing at Bari Centrale and going on from there, allowing about an hour and a half. By car it is around seventy kilometres from Bari and under an hour; from the Ionian coast, a little under an hour.

Inside the region

Here distances are more misleading than elsewhere. A hundred kilometres of inland Basilicata is not a hundred kilometres of flat: you travel on ridge roads, with continuous bends, single-carriageway stretches and villages to drive through. The Basentana and the Bradanica are the two fast routes that cut across the region; everything else is ordinary road. The rule of thumb is to take the time your satnav gives and add a third.

Motorhome drivers should add one more warning: many streets in the inland villages are narrow with tight bends inside the built-up area. Better to look at the route before setting off rather than following the satnav, which tends to choose the shortest road and not the widest.