The town of Pietragalla, Basilicata is first mentioned in documents around the year 1118. There are a lot of theories as to the origins of the name ranging from something having to do with the color of rock formations in the area, to being named after a Roman dignitary, to being a medieval word for "forest". Whatever the origins of the town and its name the three times I visited the site the weather was always less than hospitable. At an elevation of 820 meters the site was frequently treated to a healthy dose of winter weather. But that's OK. It was still Italy (which was starting to grow on me).
The equipment was placed in a small concrete building whose floor was about 2 to 3 meters below ground level. The building was on the west end of the town.
The building housed some kind of system used for injecting "something" into what looked like a small water main that passed through the building. While this kind of equipment is not what you want to put a seismic sensor near it looked like the equipment was not currently in use or was used infrequently.
The floor of the building seemed to be permanently covered with a layer of water -- at least it was there every time we were there -- so the equipment was placed on top of an old wooden pallet.
Before the installation was finished it started to snow and blow outside. The picture above is of John finishing the installation of the cover over the sensor. The specks of white were part dust and part snow blowing in the doorway illuminated by the camera's flash.
While we were installing the station a nearby town, probably Avigliano, set off a large fireworks display -- popular at Christmas time -- which I took a really bad picture of above. Before the station installation was finished darkness, in addition to the wind and snow, moved in and together made all of the lights from all of the nearby towns disappear. We had to drive part of the way back to Grottaminarda in a full-fledged blizzard.
The second time I visited the site it was already getting dark. The melting snow that had been dropped the week before turned the part dirt/part paved road leading to the building into an impassible mud and snow slide. We had to walk the last 400 meters to get to the building.
On the third visit that I made to Pietragalla the road was mostly just one big mud pit. I'm sure it is a nice place to visit, but wintertime doesn't seem to be the right time.
2018-03-05