Traveling to Basilicata in summer is like reaching your own end of the world. Matera-born novelist Mariolina Venezia wrote that “Basilicata is moody. Not lunar, moody. In winter, it is all congealed and melancholy, and you are barely catching your breath before you find it yellow and burnt like hell, gloomy from too much light and the scorching sun.”

The ideal explorer of this region–squeezed between Puglia, Campania and Calabria and unknown to the rest of Italy despite being in the beating heart of the south–must be at least as moody as she is.