At the southern end of our peninsula, with its more than 780 km of coastline, a palette of colors and nature that is unique throughout the world extends. AND Calabria, an almost perfect synthesis of the whole Italian panorama, in a tour of colors, flavors, traditions and landscape beauties. Calabria, land of love, set to the east by the Ionian Sea and to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea. This region gives panoramas of extraordinary beauty. Crystalline seas, steep mountains, forests, cliffs, river gorges and rock overhangs that plunge into the wild and crystal clear coasts.
beaches
Among the most suggestive coastal stretches, we remember the Riviera of the Cedars. Here the limestone rocks, affected by karst phenomena, give rise to brightly colored sea caves, such as the Blue Grotto and the Lionof the island of Dino. In Acquappesa it stands majestically the Queen's Rock, almost a stack, the subject of numerous legends. From Tropea to Pizzo Calabro, from Bagnara to Capo Rizzuto, you go from long and hot beaches of Nicoterato the granite cliffs of Capo Vaticano. From the finest sands to multicolored pebbles.
Landscapes
In the Calabrian hinterland there are three natural parks. The Pollino, Aspromonte and Sila Park. It is precisely in the Sila nature reserve that we can see the Giants of Fallistro. They are over a hundred years old larch pines of great size. A succession of majestic mountains and forests, peaks and hills, lakes and pine forests, valleys and spectacular waterfalls, steep sides and steep rocky ridges. You can find some real monuments sculpted by the wind. Like Repent it, reminiscent of a gigantic hand emerging from the ground. This is defined as one of the strangest of humanity's abodes. Amazement and wonder capture the viewer in seeing Chianalea, ancient fishing village of Scilla. Here the houses rise directly on the rocks and the Ruffo Castle dominates the Strait of Messina.
History and legends
History and culture have their roots in prehistoric times. As evidence of this the cave of the Romito. It is one of the oldest sites in Europe. And it is the National Museum of Reggio Calabria to host the spectacles Riace's bronzes, dating back to the fifth century BC Myths and legends envelop the Calabrian past, like the one seen by Aschenez, great-grandson of Noè. This Semitic merchant and inventor of the rowboat arrived three generations after the universal flood on the shores where Reggio was founded. And how can we forget the mythological figure of the Ligea siren who threw himself into the sea from the top of a cliff following the passage of a ship that came out unscathed by its bewitching song. The waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea would have thrown Ligea's body on the Tyrrhenian shore of Calabria, near terine.
Churches and art
Numerous the sacred places, churches, monasteries scattered throughout the territory. As to Serra San Bruno, where Bruno of Cologne founded the Certosa, the first monastery in Italy. Or the suggestive and very particular church of Piedigrotta in Pizzo. Entirely excavated in the tuffaceous rocks, the Church of Piedigrotta represents a unicum of its kind and a flagship for the whole region. With its sacred altar, groups of statues, capitals with angels, bas-reliefs with sacred scenes, frescoes on the vault of the central nave and on that of the main altar, all made from the same tuff.
Eating in Calabria
An ancient and solid one also thrives in Calabria food and wine tradition. It wisely mixes intense and genuine flavors of peasant origin, scents of land and sea, sweet and spicy, which create a symphony of aromas and spices unique all over the world. How not to mention then some of the most renowned products of the toe of the boot, such as the bergamot of Reggio Calabria, the capocollo, clementines, the highly prized licorice, the ice cream truffle of Pizzo, the red onion of Tropea. All with DOP and IGP marks.