January 2022
Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park
With the Archaeological sites of Paestum and Velia, and the Certosa di Padula.
The Cilento is an outstanding cultural landscape. The dramatic group of sanctuaries and settlements along its three east-west mountain ridges vividly represent the area’s historical evolution: it was a major route not only for trade, but also for cultural and political interaction during the prehistoric and medieval periods. The Cilento was also the boundary between the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia and the indigenous Etruscan and Lucanian peoples. The remains of two major cities from classical times, Paestum and Velia, are found there. Of the monastic properties the most impressive is the Certosa di San Lorenzo at Padula in the Vallo di Diano. Construction began in 1306, but in its present form it is essentially Baroque, built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
