Located in the high Basento Valley, behind the Dolomiti Lucane, Pietrapertosa borders with the towns of Campomaggiore, Accettura, Cirigliano, Gorgoglione, Laurenzana and Castelmezzano.

Among the different ways to be and to become a landscape town, the one of Pietrapertosa is without doubt, one of the most original because, contrary to the usual way, the town does not show off.

As other sites chosen by Arabians to settle in, Abriola, Castelmezzano, Tricarico, Tursi, also Pietrapertosa presents a landscape with a double attitude, one dissimulated and open to the outside, the other, more safe and directed inside, always defensible within the labyrinth of “Rabatana”, the Arab quarter. Here, the alleys often end in a dead end, close to a cliff, next to small pieces of land used to create vegetable gardens.

The theme of the rock, of the cliff and of the hidden castle here dominates. The settlement is structured in different stairs, often connected among them along the cliff. At the end of the stairs often a fig tree appears, once used to tie the donkeys.

Here in Pietrapertosa the monument are not buildings but rocks: the Dolomiti Lucane, that the local fantasy has given strange name to be identified. These natural monumental architectures have been the perfect hideout of the Arabs