Abandoned towns

I visited Craco in 2008. The views of the abandoned town during the drive to and from were really cool as it sits high on a hilltop. Once we got there, we walked around the perimeter of the town, but everything is truly in ruins making it difficult to get around. We would have explored further into the town, but there were some dogs around that started to follow us and frankly, that in addition to the "abandoned-ness" of it all, made it start to feel a bit like we were in horror movie. Since we had no idea where the dogs came from (ie. if they were wild, had rabies, etc...), we decided it was best to head back to the car. If you are in the area and enjoy interesting, winding drives it's certainly worth a look. It's definitely a favorite memory from my trip to Southern Italy. And from doing a bit of Googling I saw this:"The first stage of a new visitation route through the ruined town has been implemented. The municipality has secured regional and EU funding for this effort, which will include cultural activities including concerts, exhibitions, and film screenings. July 2011" So I suppose it's possible that things have changed since I was there in June 2008.

Thanks for the info Amy. The dogs would've made me nervous too!! Got looking around for info and found some others also with the best sounding place being Bolsena near Orvieto. There's supposed to be a small Roman amphitheatre and town that's totally unadvertised to tourists. Sounds like it's overgrown and a little hard to get to but worth it to see.

On a related front, I've still got Cerveteri on my list of places to see. An ancient Etruscan ghost town, of sorts.

Bodie, CA is, worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=509