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Amantea:
Amantea ranks high on a list of Calabria's prettiest towns. It is also one of the region's most historically fascinating and most unique. However, long before the Romans and even the Greeks, Amantea has served as an important ground, as far as human history is concerned. Dozens of Bronze and Iron age artifacts have been located in and around the mouth of the river Savuto, which opens to the sea, nearby Amantea's port.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, present-day Calabria was divided into two parts: Longobardian and Byzantine. The border between these two new nations, became Amantea itself, controlled by the Byzantines, who built a strong castle to safeguard this border. The castle is still prominent on the hills above the town, looking at the coast in either direction.
In modern day Amantea, the city is essentially divided into two sections. The historical center, located on the hill above the "new" city, where shops, restaurants and piazzas line a main boulevard. It's a friendly town and tourists should find no problem in finding their way around here.
Briatico:
Briatico was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1783. The most important tourist sight is the Torre La Rocchetta, a picturesque ruin of a 16th century Saracen tower. Briatico is today still regarded as a place of extraordinary beauty with unique charm. Between its steep ledges with breathtaking panoramas there are powerful fortresses and beautiful sandy beaches, some of which are accessible only by boat. The area surrounding Briatico is scattered with numerous vineyards, orchards and olive groves. The earthy, untouched flora and fauna is also stunning. In spring you will discover a never-ending sea of flowers of a thousand colours and the perfume of many herbs and spices mingles with the salty smell of the sea.
Camigliatello:
This town is very popular because of the summer resort and the winter sports. It is situated in the Sila Grande and enchants tourists with a steam engine, that was constructed by "Borsig Werke" in Berlin in 1926 and is still in motion. The line section leads through the "Parco Nazionale" and goes up to 1406,5m to Europe´s highest narrow-gage-railway Silvana Mansio.
Capo Vaticano:
In the ancient world, Capo Vaticano in the south of Italy was part of the “Magna Graeca” and well-known as a sacred place throughout the area influenced by the Greeks. Many priests and fortune tellers lived there and explored the future. Even Hercules, Aeneas and Odysseus, the legendary mariners, are said to have stopped there to ask the seers for advice before challenging the terrible sea monsters in the Strait of Messina.
Catanzaro:
This town rises on a rock and is split into two parts by the steep Fiumarella valley, the two sections being connected by a huge concrete steel bridge (the Viadotto Morandi), among the highest in Europe, built in 1960 on a design of architect Riccardo Morandi. The beach side neighborhood Catanzaro Lido, located about 5 kilometers south, has a wide promenade and a harbor for small fishing and pleasure boats.
The old town was built over three hills (St. Trifone or St. Rocco Hill; Episcopate's Hill; St. John's Hill) in Byzantine times.
Catanzaro was since the 11th century the lace capital of the world with a large silkworm breeding, it produced all the laces and linens used in the Vatican and supplied merchants that came from all over Europe to buy the silk in the port of Reggio Calabria soon before Pentecost day.
A devastating earthquake in 1783vwiped away churches, palaces and a large part of the population, and a second in 1832 completed the destruction of most ancient historical buildings.
The Provincial Museum
This museum is located in the town of Catanzaro on Villa Trieste. The museum, situated in a building in the Public gardens, is well known particularly for its numismatic collection of over 8,000 Greek, Roman, Medieval, and modern coins.
The Carriage Museum
This museum is located in the town of Catanzaro on Contrada Monte Musofalo. The collection includes 25 ancient carriages among which you can admire those used in the film "Gone with the Wind". There are also many objects testifying to local farming and country life.
Cosenza:
Cosenza has more than a hundred thousand inhabitants and stands on the valley of the river Crati, at 244 meters above sea level, surrounded by mountains and woodland hills. The old town center is kept perfectly and the latest areas have spread around it. Really, it's just the old center, which characterizes Cosenza, the ancient capital of the “Bruzi” whose history interlaces with the Romans' ever since the Punic wars. The promoters of the urban old center were characters of great mental capacity such as Frederick II who transformed the Castle on the Brezia rock; he rebuilt the Romanesque twelfth century Cathedral, and made a present of very valuable relics to the archbishop’s palace. The other great sovereign to bring honor to Cosenza is Isabella of Aragona; French workers have put up a Gothic monument in her honor in 1600.
The Civic Museum of Cosenza
This museum is located in the city of Cosenza on Piazza XV Marzo. Here you can admire remains from various areas in the territory of ancient Cosentia.
Isole Eolie:
The Aeolian Islands are a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily. They are a popular tourist destination in the summer, and attract up to 200,000 visitors annually.
The largest island is Lipari, and tourism marketing often names the entire archipelago the Lipari Islands because of the ease of pronouncing Lipari compared to Aeolian. The other islands includ Vulcano, Salina, Stromboli, Filicudi, Alicudi, and Panarea. The town of Lipari has about 11,000 inhabitants. Vulcano is famous for its fango baths.
Sprachcaffe Italy Tours offers a sailing trip to the Aeolian Islands. For further information click here
Paola:
In Paola (about 17,000 inhabitants) italys most admired saint was born. San Francesco di Paola (1416-1507) was the founder of the former monastery in town. The pilgrimage church consists of renaissance and baroque buildings. A path from the monastery leads to the old core of the town, which is surmounted by the relicts of the fort of the Aragons. If you go through the monumental Porta S. Francesco you enter the Piazza Popolo with a baroque well.
Pizzo:
The seaport Pizzo is situated on a steep cliff overlooking the Gulf of Santa Eufemia.
In 1783 the town was almost destroyed by an earthquake, and it suffered some damage from the same cause in 1905.
Pizzo is a town of about 9,000 inhabitants, which stays in a delightful position among sea and mountains. Pizzo is also nice an picturesque, located upon slant of an accentuated promontory called u pizzu. From its squares, real terraces by the sea, one can see suggestive picturesque views. From its streets one can see suggestive landscapes and a blue sea which lead the sight towards the volcano Stromboli.
It has an old castle, in which Joachim Murat, ex-king of Naples, was shot on October 13 in 1815.
Reggio di Calabria:
Reggio di Calabria, as its inhabitants love calling it, is the oldest and most populous Calabrian town. Its origins, in fact, go back to the seventh century B.C. and it was, together with Crotone and Sibari, one of the most important colonies of Magna Graecia. Today it counts more than 170 thousand inhabitants and still remains the main point of contact between Italy and the Mediterranean. It stands on the cast coast of the Straits of Messina; it laces the Sicilian coast and is connected to it by ferryboats and hydrofoils. From the bright seafront, among luxuriant grass plots, one can admire the Fata Morgana, an amazing phenomenon: thanks to a particular show of lights, the whole town is reflected on the sea.
Reggio di Calabria was the hometown of Gianni Versace, where his family were tailors.
Rossano:
Rossano
is situated on an eminence two miles from far from the Gulf of Taranto. The town is known for its marble and alabaster quarries. The town is the seat for a Catholic Archbishop and has a notable cathedral and castle.
Roscianum was the original name of the town under the Roman Empire.
The Cathedral (11th century, with massive interventions in the 18th–19th centuries) is the main monument of Rossano. It has a nave with two aisles, and three apses. The bell tower and the baptismal font are from the 14th century, while the remaining decorations are from the 17th and 18th centuries. The church is famous for the ancient image of the Madonna acheropita ("Madonna not made by hands"), now located in the Diocesan Museum, probably dating between 580 and the first half of the 8th century. In 1879, the famous codex rossanensis was discovered in the sacristy. It is a Greek parchment manuscript of Matthew and Mark, written in silver on purple-stained parchment, and is one of the oldest pictorial Gospels known. Scholars date the codex from the end of the fifth to the eighth or ninth century; it is probably of Alexandrian origin.
St. Mark Oratory
The St. Mark Oratory (10th century, originally entitled to St. Anastasia) is the most ancient monument of the city and one of the best preserved Byzantine churches in Italy. It was built by St. Nilus the Younger in the 10th century for the ascetic retreats of the monks living in the tufa grottos underneath. It is a Byzantine-style edifice with rectangular Greek-cross plan, with five domes on cylindrical drums. Traces of the original wall frescoes remain.
Santa Maria del Pártire
This former basilian monastery is located in a beautiful landscape. In byzantine times it was one of the richest monasteries in italy. In the inside you can see precious mosaicked floors.
S. Giovanni in Fiore:
This location is situated on the plateau of the Sila. It´s a significant trading-, craft-, and tourist center. It´s famous for the abbey Badia Florense, which was founded at the end of the 12th centure by Gioacchino da Fiore.
Abbazia Florense
This abbey has an very interesting architecture, for example the gothic portal, the apsiszone, and the bones of the founder Gioacchino da Fiore.
Museo Demologico
The anthropological museum gives impressions of the past life in the Sila plateau.
Scilla:
Twenty-two kilometers from the city of Reggio Calabria, Scilla lies in front of the strait of Messina, and it is composed by two sides: the downtown, where the town offices and the patronal saint residence have place, and Marina di Scilla, the beach side, populated by tourists and thus heavily characterized by hotels and restaurants. Since its beach is the first place north of Reggio Calabria where the waters are not cooled down by the strait draughts, Scilla is very frequented during the summer period, including by people from neighbourhing towns and cities.
The beach is dominated by the Ruffo Castle, a fortress wished by the dukes of Calabria.
Serra San Bruno:
In a green valley on the Ionian side of the Serre Mountain range, 2,600 feet above sea level, lies Serra San Bruno, a lovely mountain village with medieval origins.
Founded at the end of the eleventh century around the Priory of St. Bruno of Cologne, it belonged to the monastic complex until 1756.
Set in a woodland park and surrounded by green pastures, Serra San Bruno is noted for the lovely churches of St. Biagio and Our Lady of Sorrows, gems of Baroque architecture, with fine stone doorways and wooden ornaments, the work of skilled local woodcarvers.
However, the significant cultural treasure of the village is The Priory, where the confraternity of Bruno still lives. The Priory library and museum are open to the public. In the center of the village are eighteenth-century buildings, with fine doorways and splendidly decorated stone balconies.
Serra San Bruno has always maintained a solid craft tradition, above all in the field of woodworking, masonry and wrought ironwork. The cookery and farm produce, especially the cheeses, mushrooms and sweets, are famous.
Today, Serra San Bruno is still a farming village, a trading center and a destination for pilgrims.
Sibari:
Sibari
was a city of Magna Graecia on the Gulf of Taranto, between the rivers Crathis (Crati) and Sybaris (Coscile), which now meet about 5 km from the sea, but in ancient times had independent mouths. It was the oldest Greek colony in this region. The site is located within the commune of Cassano allo Ionio.
Sibari was an Achaean colony founded by Isus of Helice about 720 BC, but had among its settlers many Troezenians, who were ultimately expelled. Although the region is now unhealthy, at the time it was very fertile, and following a liberal admission policy, the city became large and wealthy, with a vast subject territory and diverse daughter colonies even on the Tyrrhenian Sea (Poseidonia, Laus, Scidrus).
Explorations undertaken by the Italian government in 1879 and 1887 failed to lead to a precise knowledge of the site. Only two discoveries were made: an extensive necropolis, some 12 km to the west of the confluence of the two rivers, of the end of the first Iron age, known as that of Torre Mordillo, the contents of which are now preserved at Potenza; a necropolis of about 400 BC – the period of the greatest prosperity of Thurii – consisting of tombs covered by tumuli (locally called timponi), in some of which were found fine gold plates with mystic inscriptions in Greek characters; one of these tumuli was over 2.7 m in diameter at the base with a single burial in a sarcophagus in the center.
National Sybaritide Archaeological Museum
The National Sybaritide Archaeological Museum, established in 1996, houses findings from the site of the big Magna Graecia colony and from all the territory under its influence.
Sila:
The fertile plateau of Sila Mountain includes the Sila Grande and the Sila piccola. It´s the "green heart" of Calabria. The Parco Nazionale domiciles the biggest wolf pack in southern italy. Lots of deers, fallow deers, chamois, raptors, and rare sorts of birds live in the Sila. The air is fresh and you can find herbage, mushrooma, strawberries, raspberries, orchids, and lilies.
Soverato:
The bright sandy beach and the crystal-clear water of Soverato attract tourists from all over the world. The watchtower - called Carlo V. - was built in the 16th century. Interesting fossile records were made in Soverato .
Stilo:
Stilo was the bastion of the Basilian monks and is famous for the Byzantine church, La cattolica. Small in size but of perfect proportions in the form of a Greek cross.
This church is located in the town of Stilo in the province of Reggio Calabria. This is one of the most famous and best-preserved Byzantine churches in the region. The harmonious building dating back to the 10th century stands on an isolated out crop high up on Mount Consolino in the valley of Stilaro. It has a square plan with three semi-circular, mullioned apses and five cylindrical domes enriched with single and double paned windows. The external structure is decorated with the ingenious layering of differently hued bricks. Inside, there are three aisles and you can see the remains of precious Byzantine frescoes.
Tropea:
Tropea has great sandy beaches, an old town, steep streets, and old churches. It´s perhaps the most famous destination in all of Calabria. The highlight is the Santa Maria dell'Isola, built on a rock with sea on three sides and a beach on one.
Ringed by cliffs and wonderful sandy beaches, the Tropea promontory is still undiscovered by the big tour operators. The main town, Tropea, easily wins the contest for prettiest town on the Calabria Tyrrhenian coast, its old palazzi built in simple golden stone on an elevation above the sea.
On a clear day, the seaward views from the waterfront promenade extend to embrace Stromboli's cone and at least four of the other Eolians - the islands can be visited by motorboats that depart daily from Tropea in the summer.
From belvedere at the bottom of the main square, Piazza Ercole, the church and Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria della Isola glistens on a rocky pormontory above an aquamarine sea. Stroll out to visit the church on a path lined wiht fishermen's caves. Of Basilian origin, the church was remodeled in Gothic style, then given another face-lift after an earthquake in 1905. The interior has an 18th-century nativity and some fragments of medieval tombs.
Vibo Valentia:
Vibo Valentia is located near the Tyrrhenian Sea and is a lively tourist resort (with the beaches of Vibo Marina), as well as an agricultural and commercial center.
The town was a Greek colony under the name of Hipponion, under the control of the powerful city of Locri, founded around the 7th century BC. Little by Little Hipponion grew in power and military force, and won independence from Locri in 422 BC thanks also to an alliance with Syracuse. It was a military base of the Carthaginians, and finally in the 2nd century BC came under Roman influence, and since then was known as Valentia.
After the fall of the western Roman empire in 476 AD it was for a period a strategically important fortress under Byzantine rule. It was attacked and destroyed by the Moors in 850 and again in 983 AD, then a second glorious period began under the Normans and subsequently the Swabians, and in 1235 the name was changed into Monteleone of Calabria.
In the following centuries it was a renowned cultural center, and in 1799 Gioacchino Murat appointed it as capital of the province of Calabria Ultra. In 1928 the name was changed back to Vibo Valentia, and in 1992 it became the capital of the newly established province, created with part of the territory of the province of Catanzaro.
Vito Capiaibi National Archaeological Museum
This museum is located in the city of Vibo Valentia in the Castello Normanno-Svevo. This Museum houses the Albanese and Capiaibi collections, plus material from the digs carried out in the western burial grounds of Vibo Valentia and surrounding territory. The exhibits are arranged in showcases exactly as they were when they were found. You can see the funeral trappings from a Bronze Age tomb, votive material from the sanctuary in the Scrimbia area, a gold sheet with inscription in Greek linked to the Orphic rites, vases, architectural fragments and paintings. In the north tower you can see remains from the Roman burial grounds, from the ancient city and from the villas excavated in this area.
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