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Potenza, Vulture and Melfi Area - The Vulture Mountain

The Vulture Mountain (1,326 m) has a volcanic origin and started forming 800,000 years ago, when the first explosions took place.

The lava bursting out of the several craters settled on the edges, slowly taking the morphology of the land.

Vulture is now an extinguished volcano, showing the typical shape of a truncated cone and is covered by rich vegetation, which grows luxuriant because of the fertile soil. The peculiarities of this territory have made it a protected area.

Apart from having great landscape beauties it hosts the ‘Brahmea’ an extinguishing nocturnal butterfly picked out since 1961.

The Oriented Natural Reserve Grotticella was instituted in 1971 to protect the environmental and animal heritage of this area, which is also very important for its forests, characterised by trees typical of South-Eastern Europe.