The Alta Murgia Park

Percorso del Parco

Spending a day out walking and enjoying the sun and clean air is a cure-all for the health and the spirit; then if one has the good fortune to visit a park which has a high naturalistic and environmental value, then it is definitely a chance not to be missed.
The Alta Murgia National Park, a treasure of flora and fauna formally recognized in 2004, extends along the Murgia plateau for a vast area of 68,000 hectares, including thirteen municipalities.
The landscape of the Alta Murgia is drawn from the limestone rock, always there and consistently utilized to build the typical farmhouses’ walls, cisterns, jazzi, pagliari (shelter made of woven straw mats and wooden poles) and dairy barns.
The territory has a varied and perfect habitat for a multitude of plant and animal species and boasts truly unique landscapes and endless horizons.
The protected area of the park includes numerous municipalities and among those that are part of the Castel del Monte DOC Wine Road are: Andria, Corato, Ruvo di Puglia, and Minervino Murge; kilometers and kilometers of dry stone walls that border the fields, cattle trails, wells of drinking water, roads, cisterns and pools of water.
The Alta Murgia is a region with great natural and environmental diversity; it is made up of pseudo Mediterranean steppes, host to the wild rose and wild orchids that in the flowering season color and perfume the undergrowth.
Numerous specimens of rare and precious fauna find an ideal habitat, for example, the lesser kestrel, hares, foxes, martens, buzzards and kestrels.

The church of San Magno

Visiting the park you can choose from a wide variety of paths that follow the gentle slopes, passing through old peasant structures, landscapes that open up the eye to fabulous sunsets, rich blossoming of almonds, thyme and asphodels, and old trulli (A trullo is a traditional Apulian stone dwelling with a conical roof) . In the small town of San Magno, in the territory of Corato, there is still preserved, surrounded by greenery, a lovely example of an ice house and the church of San Magno, once used, aside from the church services, also for the collection and storage of snow to be used in warmer months as a refrigerator.

For a delectable lunch break, you can take advantage of the many farms scattered throughout the area, almost all have a kitchen and dining area open to the public and they offer exclusively local products or their produce.
Instead, if you prefer to eat a takeaway breakfast and rest in a cool shade, you can take advantage a large oak tree, which you may have to share with a few sheep, then, if Castel del Monte appears in the background, know that it is not by chance, because the old manor house dominates the whole territory and its view is almost always present.

Tips

Wineries to visit

• Torrevento
  distance 41,1 Km, about 9 minutes by car
• Cantine Carpentiere
  distance 10,6 Km, about 13 minutes by car
• Cantina Grifo
  distance 11,1 Km, about 11 minutes by car
• Tenuta Cocevola
  distance 21,4 Km, about 20 minutes by car
• Spagnoletti Zeuli
  distanza 28,7 Km circa 24 min. in auto
• Azienda Rivera
  distance 30,1 Km, about 26 minutes by car
• Tormaresca
  distance 41,5 Km, about 41 minutes by car

Where to eat

• Tenuta Pedale
  distance 8,2 Km, about 13 minutes by car
• U.P.E.P.I.D.D.E
  distance 11,1 Km, about 11 minutes by car
• Terre di Traiano
  distance 28,8 Km, about 28 minutes by car