DONNAPAOLA
IN THE HEART OF MURGIA
The Donnapaola modern farm extends over 270 hectares, and offers visitors an endless view of rock formations, typical Apulian dry stone walls, thick forests and vast expanses of steppe. In these Murgian grasslands, you can find the distinctive trees typical of Mediterranean vegetation: downy oak, kermes oak, holm oak, and common wild plants such as asphodel, fennel, and many others. The undergrowth is rich in medicinal plants such as honeysuckle, hawthorn, butcher’s-broom and dog rose, as well as aromatic herbs such as thyme, rosemary, lesser calamint, and edible plants such as asparagus, borage, dandelion, and many others with colourful flowers. You can have truly extraordinary encounters with small and medium-sized animals, which often find shelter in the many caves and ravines, and when out walking you will also be passed by freely-grazing Podolian cattle, which have much to offer us in this rural life.
Here, we are in the deepest heart of Murgia, which will charm you with its areas of subplains and gullies. And it is right here where the journey starts, full of emotions.
Man in the world
of plants and animals
In this place, people are conscious guests, approaching the history of the Murgian community, in the most rugged part of Apulia, to discover the importance of the relationship between people, the plant world and the animal world. The desire for knowledge has always pushed humans beyond the surface, leading them to interpret profound stories such as those you will discover with every step you take around the Donnapaola farm. For all those who allow themselves to be led through this place soaked with cultural anthropology, fully experiencing Murgia restores their sense of identity, the essential key to memory. A slow walk through this place starts from the major renovation of the original jazzi and trulli buildings, as a type of experience-based tourism. It then continues along paths between dry stone walls for 13km, circling around the entire area. We then continue, arriving at the farm, the estate’s main building and a place of wellbeing for the animals, and then reach the farmhouse, where the languages of art meet the languages of nature in an experience where the land truly becomes the world’s new hygiene.
Apulia,
Murgia
the footprint of existence
Donnapaola has recreated a world full of accessible cultural experiences in which all the elements of the history of the Murgian community are included, with its unique landscape and territory, its ancient crafts, its abilities and customs.
The surrounding agricultural landscape is already the result of the anthropological footprint of its inhabitants, a distinctive sign of mankind’s integration into nature.
On the estate, the languages of nature and art manifest in a remote future where the identity of the place is taken from a file in our memory: art and nature, art and landscape, art and food, art and anthropology, art and crafts.
This is the programme of activities for the great cultural attraction being created in the Farmhouse, where the Archivia project safely stores the history of Murgia’s cultural anthropology.
This is the profound experience of man entering into nature and the landscape, which changes from natural to cultural.
Storyliving and Tourism
Donnapaola is a place where the past and the present coexist in harmony.
A place where the restoration of the ancestral relationship between nature and humanity becomes a real, lived experience. Here, we don’t study anthropology, we simply live it.
The farm aims for a type of travel experience in which the beauty of the territory comes into contact with the destination, establishing a profound, authentic relationship. The trip includes immersive art workshops, and workshops on the topics of the environment and anthropology.
A Resort for Ideas, containers and the contained
We experience the link that unites our present with historical memory, experience and tradition.
At Donnapaola, there is a dialogue between farmers’ knowledge, traditional trades and ecological awareness, creating profound content. The architectural and natural complex, located within the SIC area of Alta Murgia, has a direct impact on the promotion and diffusion of Murgian culture from a historical and artistic point of view, through a wide range of activities.
