La Calcara of the Colonna brothers, in the masseria to discover peasant cheeses and flavours

Company La Calcara
Provincial road 151, Km 27,600 – Altamura
080 314 5365 - 340 1022342

About 6 km from Altamura, a city known throughout the world for its bread, immersed in the Alta Murgia countryside, stands theFarm e farmhouse family run The Limestone, a 800th century fortified Masseria, managed by the brothers Donato and Nicola Colonna. The company covers 285 hectares of land, 140 of which are devoted to spontaneous pasture for the 400 sheep of the company, 40 to rotationally cultivated pasture and the rest cultivated with wheat and legumes.

Passion and dedication are the watchwords of the Colonna brothers who produce authentic delicacies such as i cheese fresh (ricotta and scamorza) and those seasonedObviously the prince product is an excellent one Canestrato organic. Prices: 16 € for the seasoned (from 4 months to a year) e 13 for the one under 4 months. Sizes from 3 to 6 kilos. It is possible to buy cheese, ricotta and scamorza by reservation only. L'hospitality of the Colonna brothers has its roots in peasant culture of the Murgian countryside, in the profound relationship that unites man to the earth, capable of generously giving its fruits to those who dedicate themselves with passion. In the Masseria and in the Agriturismo we work with passion and dedication, rediscovering daily gestures of craftsmanship from which authentic delicacies originate, tasty dishes handed down over many years of generations and cooked using exclusively native raw materials.

Masseria La Calcara is also one school surrounded by nature, where students and teachers teach to discover the rural world and agricultural production, natural phenomena and biological cycles, the links between man, the natural environment and the city, expertly accompanied by the farmers who work there.

La didactics in the Masseria it represents a precious opportunity for children to get to know the area, its natural, cultural and anthropological characteristics and above all to introduce them to food education.
A day on the educational farm means offering children and young people the opportunity to see, learn and get excited about nature and an ancient structure, testimony of a peasant culture that still survives in the traditions and habits of the Apulian people.

"Those who choose La Calcara - says Donato Colonna - decide to live an experience far from the noise of the city and close to the sounds of the fields, in an environment where adults and children can rediscover the ancient ties with nature through pleasant walks rides, or participating in the activities that for centuries have marked the rural day according to the different seasons: sheep grazing, the grape harvest, the olive harvest, the dairy ritual of milk processing".

From La Calcara you can make interesting trips. The city of Altamura, known as the Lioness of Puglia for the strenuous resistance of the revolutionary uprisings of May 1799 is a stone's throw away. In the historic center you can relive the flavors and smells of the local tradition by visiting the ancient wood-burning ovens.

Do not miss a visit to Romanesque cathedral dedicated to the Assumption built by Frederick II of Swabia in 1232, partially destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt about a century later in 1316. Of the cathedral, what most attracts the gaze of visitors is its portal, in Gothic style, rich in decorations and sculptures, and the arches on which 22 scenes depicting the life of Christ are carved.

Still to be reported The Pulo, a karst sinkhole which, with its 500 meters in diameter and 100 in depth, is the largest of the Murge.

Finally, it can be seen in the State Archaeological Museum The Man of Altamura, a human skeleton dating back to the Paleolithic era whose extraordinary feature consists in the fact that it was found completely intact. And not far from the area where it was found, Footprints of the Dinosaurs, a paleontological site of global importance dating back to the Upper Cretaceous period, i.e. about eighty million years ago.