Hours & Rates

Monday closed

March - May: 9:00 am - 6:00 pm

June - September: 10:00 am -1:00 pm and 5:00 pm - 9:00 pm

October - February: 10:00 am -1:00 pm and 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Guided visit and admission rates

Regular: 4 EUR

School groups, age 6-13: 2 EUR pp

Groups minimum 10 visitors: 3 EUR pp

Teachers, group leaders, guides, travel agents and operators, children under 5: free admission

Location: SS 157 “Altamura-Quasano”, km 1,9 - Altamura
Tel: 0039 3396144164
email: rete@uomodialtamura.it

Combined admission with guided tours

Lamalunga Visitor Center + Palazzo Baldassarre

Regular: 5 EUR

School groups, age 6-13: 3 EUR pp

Other guided visits & excursions

(by reservation at  rete@uomodialtamura.it or by phone +39 339-614-4164

Lamalunga or Baldassarre + Panoramic viewpoint of Pulo (minimum 10 visitors): Admission +  3 EUR pp 

Lamalunga or Baldassarre + Grotta della Capra or Grotta Prima (minimum 10 visitors): Admission + 3 EUR pp

Lamalunga or Baldassarre + Panoramic viewpoint of Pulo + Grotta della Capra (minimum 10 visitors: admission + 4 EUR pp

Guided Visit to Altamura National Archeological Museum:  3 EUR pp (minimum 10 visitors)

Educational workshops for groups and schools: please inquire at rete@uomodialtamura.it

Lamalunga Visitor Centre Map

The Lamalunga Visitor Centre is located in the Alta Murgia National Park, 3km from the city of Altamura. The display at the Visitor Centre focuses on the natural phenomenon known as karsting, exploring the environment of the Alta Murgia and its speleology.

The rooms set out to illustrate and provide a context for the events that led to the discovery of the cave where the fossilised skeleton was found.  A selection of minerals and fossils illustrates the history of the region, dwelling in particular on the geology of the area, and visitors can also inspect at close quarters the equipment that the expert speleologists use to explore the caves and discover important information to expand our knowledge of nature.  In the Bat Room, visitors can gain first-hand experience of eco-location, learning how to find their way about and to identify obstacles simply by emitting ultrasounds just like bats, which live in dark caves.

The tour, which includes the use of audiovisual aids, can be built into specific educational activities designed chiefly for schools. 

Excursions can be organised setting out from the visitor centre at the Farmhouse and reaching the entrance to the "Grotta dell'Uomo" or Cave of the Man at Lamalunga, the "Grotta della Capra" or Cave of the She-Goat, the sink-hole known as "Pulo", the "Mena" park and so forth.

A "labyrinth" in semi-darkness that visitors explore with special potholer-style helmets fitted with distance sensors, earphones and a darkening visor:  a unique experience that gives visitors the feeling that they are travelling without the use of their sight, replaced in this case by a locating system similar to the ultrasound locating system used by bats. As an obstacle approaches, distance sensors emit sounds that can be heard in the earphones, allowing visitors to swerve to avoid it and thus to understand how a bat moves freely in the dark.

The Grotta della Capra, or Cave of the She-Goat, is a Karst cave situated a short distance from the entrance to the cave known as the Grotta di Lamalunga. It consists of a spacious cavity typical of the Karstic phenomenon that characterises the whole Alta Murgia area. The cave can be reached either via a road running along the bottom of the deep ridge or via a path leading from the farmhouse. The area is highly evocative because it is perfectly plausible that it was once frequented by prehistoric man, thus in this instance specifically by the Altamura Man. Visitors can also observe a number of speleothems (concretions) similar to those found in the nearby and better-known Grotta di Lamalunga, which cannot be opened to public for obvious conservation and protection reasons.
In recent years the cave has shown itself to be suited to hosting small groups of visitors (school groups consisting of no more than 10 people at a time) who are given potholing helmets and lights to gain first-hand experience of what potholing and exploring caves must feel like.