Metaponto

A few minutes from the sunny beaches of the Ionian coast of Basilicata, lying between the mouths of the Bradano and Basento rivers, the ancient city of Metaponto was founded around the eighth century BC. A small group of Greeks from the Peloponnese, in search of new land to populate, chose this fertile territory strategically positioned in the centre of the Ionian coastline. Those were the days of Magna Graecia, a time when the coasts of southern Italy saw flourishing trading cities built and developed by settlers from the eastern Mediterranean.  Metapontum, like many other cities of Magna Graecia, was endowed by its inhabitants with places of aggregation and exchange, but also of ritual and devotion. There were fascinating columned temples dedicated to the pagan gods, a theatre, streets, houses, shops and everything needed to make the settlement one of the main Mediterranean ports of antiquity.  The millenary remains in the archaeological park are today the main tourist attraction of Metapontum, which can also count on the beautiful beaches of the Ionian coast and on an archaeological museum of great value.