Highlights:

Discover the two lakes, the ancient craters of the volcano Vulture

Visit the abbey of St. Michael the Archangel set in the rock

Explore the ruins of the ancient abbey of St. Hippolytus

Tour details:

The naturalistic tour visit to the lakes of Monticchio will start from the small lake with the visit of the abbey of St. Michael Archangel and the ruins of the abbey of Sant’Ippolito. The visit will then continue towards the wildest big lake and often visited by sport fishing.

The lakes occupy the crater mouths of the ancient volcano of Vulture 658 meters above sea level and communicate with each other through a channel of water fed by underwater springs. The small lake has a surface of 16 hectares and a perimeter of 1800 m and has steep banks that go down to a depth of 38 m. The large lake with an area of ​​38 hectares and a perimeter of 2700 m, occupies a funnel-shaped cavity, with slums extended for most of the basin, which only sink to the north up to 36 m.

The ring route will take you to visit the shores of the small lake really pleasant and uncontaminated until you reach along a slight climb the abbey of St. Michael the Archangel of the eighth century, built around a cave built by the Basilian monks present with settlements throughout the Southern Italy. Managed today by the Capuchin Fathers, it will be possible to visit the cave with the church with three naves and a small museum with wooden sculptures of the major Italian monuments and some cells of the friars.

The visit continues going down towards the lakes and visiting the ruins of the 11th century abbey of Sant’Ippolito, also built by the Basilian monks.

Upon booking, it will also be possible to visit the Vulture Natural History Museum set up on the first two floors of the Abbey. We will retrace the history of the Vulture and the volcano through interaction and a journey back in time: we start from a suggestive representation of the recent journey of man in the Vulture, to go to the history of animals and plants to finally reach to prehistoric man and the ancient fauna of the Vulture. Great evidence within the museum has the Brahmaea europaea, a rare nocturnal butterfly discovered in the woods of Monticchio.

The tour ends with a view of the large lake, often visited by sport fishing enthusiasts.