It was my first day back in Metaponto in a decade, and I was anxious. As my train from Rome pulled into the station, after a six-hour descent past Vesuvius, the craggy Lucanian Dolomites, olive groves and pebbly streams, and finally the small hill towns and low, pale mountains (calanchi) of the Basilicata region, I wondered what had changed in this place since my last visit. My family was from this area originally, four generations back, and I had come here twice before to do genealogical research. But it had been a while.

A friend met me at the station, grabbed my bag and immediately drove me around for the whirlwind mini-tour.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/