★ Town · Reggio, Scilla and AspromonteMelito di Porto SalvoAn abandoned village clinging to a rock shaped like a hand with five fingers, in the hinterland of Aspromonte.
The storyOn Easter night 1686 Baron Bernardino Abenavoli, rejected as a suitor of the young Antonietta Alberti, entered the Alberti castle and killed her family: this was the «Alberti massacre», which legend says can still be heard in the howl of the wind between the rock's fingers. Earthquakes and landslides emptied the village, which was completely abandoned in the 20th century; today young people and craftspeople are bringing it back to life, with a film festival.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Reggio, Scilla and AspromonteBovaA village at nine hundred metres on Aspromonte, capital of the Greek-speaking area, with bilingual road signs and a steam locomotive in the square.
The storyIn the villages of the Bovesia people still speak Calabrian Greek, a language descended from the ancient and Byzantine Greek that arrived here over a thousand years ago, and perhaps partly from the colonies of Magna Graecia. Today only a few hundred people speak it, but schools, festivals and a hiking trail linking the Greek-speaking villages keep it alive. In Bova the cooking is shepherds' food, with lestopitta, a fried flatbread.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Nature · Reggio, Scilla and AspromonteSan LucaA rock monolith more than a hundred metres high rising out of the forests of Aspromonte, in the Valley of the Great Stones.
The storyIt is considered one of the largest monoliths in Europe: a block of conglomerate left standing while erosion carried away the earth around it. The same valley has other giant rocks, such as the Rocche di San Pietro, with ancient caves of Byzantine hermits. Not far away is the sanctuary of the Madonna di Polsi, a pilgrimage destination in September.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Locride, the Serre and the Ionian coastStiloA tiny Byzantine brick church with five domes, set on the side of Monte Consolino above the village of Stilo.
The storyProbably built in the 10th century, it is one of the best-preserved Byzantine monuments in Italy, a witness to the centuries when Calabria was Greek in language and rite. It was the main church of the monks who lived in the mountain's caves. The philosopher Tommaso Campanella, author of «The City of the Sun», was born in Stilo in 1568.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Locride, the Serre and the Ionian coastBadolatoA medieval village perched on a hill a few kilometres from the Ionian Sea, with churches, alleys and stone houses.
The storyEmptied by emigration in the 20th century, by the late 1990s Badolato was almost a ghost town, so much so that the council considered putting the empty houses up for sale. On 26 December 1997 the ship Ararat landed on the nearby beach with hundreds of Kurdish refugees, and the village took them into its homes. Badolato thus became Calabria's first «village of welcome», an example later followed by other villages.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Cosenza, Sila and CrotoneCosenzaAn ancient city at the confluence of the Crati and the Busento, with a hilly old town, the cathedral and an open-air sculpture museum along the main street.
The storyIn 410, after sacking Rome, Alaric, King of the Visigoths, died near Cosenza. According to ancient historians his men diverted the course of the Busento, buried him in the riverbed with his treasure and then let the water flow back, killing the slaves who had dug so that no one would reveal the spot. The tomb has never been found. Corso Mazzini now displays statues by Dalí, De Chirico and other masters.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Nature · Cosenza, Sila and CrotoneSpezzano della SilaA reserve with around sixty gigantic Calabrian pines and maples, up to forty-five metres tall, in the heart of the Sila plateau.
The storyThe trees are about three hundred and fifty years old and survived the logging that over the centuries decimated the forests of the Sila, whose timber was used for ships and buildings. Today the reserve is protected by the FAI (the Italian National Trust) and is part of the Sila National Park, where the air has been described as among the cleanest in Europe.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Pollino, Sibaritide and the Riviera dei CedriCorigliano-RossanoA Byzantine town in the hills above the Ionian, with Greek churches and monasteries and a treasure kept in the diocesan museum.
The storyThe Codex Purpureus Rossanensis is a 6th-century Greek gospel, written in gold and silver letters on purple-dyed parchment and illustrated with miniatures: one of the oldest illustrated New Testament books to have survived. It probably came here with monks fleeing the East, and it is on UNESCO's Memory of the World register. In Rossano the Amarelli family has been making liquorice since 1731 and has a museum devoted to it.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Pollino, Sibaritide and the Riviera dei CedriCivitaAn Arbëreshë village overlooking the Raganello gorge, with the Kodra houses whose façades look like faces and the Devil's Bridge over the canyon.
The storyIn the 15th century, after the death of the Albanian hero Skanderbeg, thousands of Albanians fleeing the Turks settled in southern Italy. In Civita their descendants still speak Arbëresh, follow the Byzantine rite and wear traditional costumes at festivals. The Raganello gorge, deep and narrow, is one of the most spectacular in Europe.
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