Some towns are abandoned because of war, famine, or the slow passage of time. Craco, in southern Italy, was abandoned because the ground beneath it simply gave way.
Today its medieval streets, aristocratic palazzi, and Norman tower still stand, at least in part, on a hillside in Basilicata, much as they were when the last residents left more than half a century ago.
A Thousand Years on a Hill That Was Never Quite Stable
The earliest records of settlement here date to the Norman era, around the 11th century, when the tower that still defines Craco’s silhouette was built. Archaeological finds in the surrounding area suggest people lived here long before that.
Through the Middle Ages, Craco belonged to a succession of powerful southern Italian feudal families — the Monforte, the Sforza, the Sanseverino — each of which left its mark in palaces still visible among the ruins: Palazzo Maronna, Palazzo Grossi, Palazzo Carbone and Palazzo Simonetti.
The deeper problem, though, was always underground.
Craco was built on a hill of clay and sand, ground that is naturally prone to erosion and easily destabilized by groundwater.
Landslides are recorded as early as the second half of the 19th century. Some were serious enough that builders put up a retaining wall more than 10 feet thick to hold the hillside in place.
It was, in hindsight, a battle the village was always going to lose.
1963: The Beginning of the End
The decisive blow came in 1963.
A landslide, triggered largely by faulty water and sewer works being built nearby, severely damaged much of the historic center.
Authorities evacuated the town’s roughly 1,800 residents and relocated them to two newly built settlements at the foot of the hill: Craco Peschiera and Craco Sant’Angelo.
Their descendants still live there today.
The old village, however, did not die all at once.
In the years that followed, some families held on in the historic center. Then a flood in 1972 and, above all, the devastating Irpinia earthquake of 1980 — one of the most powerful in Italy in the 20th century — drove out the last of Craco‘s residents.
From then on, the old village stood empty.
From Forgotten Village to Film Set
For decades afterward, Craco was little more than a footnote in southern Italian history, just another ghost town among the many left behind as people left the countryside after World War II.
That changed when filmmakers discovered what the ruins could offer on screen.
Craco’s empty streets and half-collapsed facades have appeared in Francesco Rosi’s “Christ Stopped at Eboli” (1979), Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” (2004), and the James Bond film “Quantum of Solace” (2008), among other international productions.
That attention brought a new kind of visitor, drawn by something very different from whatever led the village’s founders here a thousand years ago.
Visiting Craco Today
Craco is no longer a secret. It is now one of the most visited ghost towns in Italy, though getting in is far from simple.
Because the terrain remains unstable and many of the remaining buildings could collapse, the historic center can be visited only on a guided tour, booked through the official site, and everyone wears a hard hat throughout.
The museum park is open daily from April through October, generally from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The rest of the year, it opens on weekends only, with shorter hours. Guided tours leave roughly every hour.
The tours take in the main street, what remains of the central piazza (partly sunken since the landslide), and several side alleys — roughly a third of the original village.
Admission is around 16 euros and includes the Museo Emozionale di Craco, an audiovisual space that sets the site’s history in context before or after the walk through the ruins.
Craco is about 37 miles from Matera, the UNESCO World Heritage city famous for its ancient Sassi cave dwellings — a little over an hour’s drive along the SS7.
There is no public transportation to the village. Most visitors arrive by car, on a guided tour, or by private transfer from Matera, which makes an easy base for seeing both in a single day.
A Village That Is Still Falling Apart
Unlike many historic ruins, which stabilized long ago, Craco is still shifting.
The same geological forces that forced the evacuation six decades ago are still, more slowly now, wearing away what is left of its buildings.
That may be the most unsettling thing about visiting. This is not a ruin frozen in time. Every season, the village loses a little more of itself to the same force that once drove everyone away.
