Overlooking an overhang, it observes the bay below. Around her the sea and the rocks are the protagonists of breathtaking views. A place to meditate on the beauties of nature where silence contrasts with the rumors of tourists. Visitors ready to animate sandy beaches that here and there carve out spaces on the rugged coast. And then the historic center with its palaces and mansions to tell the story of a country of ancient origins. San Nicola Arcella: in Calabria there is "the tip isolated by a rock hook" that made the American writer Francis Marion Crawford fall in love with.
San Nicola Arcella: a name that tells
Names sometimes really tell us a lot: they speak, they tell, they reveal the background. The same is true for San Nicola Arcella. Originally part of the Roman Empire, the origins of today's locality are linked to Lavinium. An ancient village located on the Lao River which during the fifth century was the subject of barbarian raids. The climate of chaos and war, together with the poor hygienic conditions of the Lao plain, infested by malaria, led the inhabitants of Lavinium to leave the area.
Where to go then? Sometimes, and especially so it was in the past, nature "helps us". Here is sighted a promontory nearby, that of Scalea, ready to reach out to the many fugitives. The high ground was undoubtedly a guarantee for one's own safety. Protected on the top of the plateau but also far from the marshy ground so hospitable to the fearsome mosquito. This is how San Nicola Arcella was born, initially a fraction of Scalea, then an autonomous municipality but only in the “nearby” 1912. It is curious to remember that the toponym "Arcella" derives from the Latin word "arx", meaning fortress.. That "fortress of salvation" where the survivors of Lavinium found a new home. But the story does not end here.
The towers: protagonists of a millenary history
The long events of this locality are now told on the external walls of the houses that characterize the historic center. In fact, murals appear on them to document, through a narration in images, the vicissitudes of the place. Starting from the most distant anecdotes, those of the first colonizers of these lands: the Greeks. Fearless navigators who saw points of interest in the beautiful places of our Southern Italy. The coasts and the sea would in fact have constituted an important resource for the management of commercial traffic. And this is how a thousand-year history of what we now call San Nicola Arcella takes shape. Initially a colony of the Magna Grecia, then Roman conquest then Byzantine. A place that was tempting to many.
This is why the ancient defense posts are still present today, recalling the stories of pirates, Saracens and attacks by sea. And so the hills become protagonists. If necessary, chosen as a place of shelter in the distant past as well as in the "modern era". Here the well-known Torre Saracena finds reason to exist. Built by the Spaniards who in the 500s had established their own vice kingdom in this land. Imposing, resistant like the stone it is made of and wisely strategic. On top of it a terrace used to communicate with the surrounding towers. On the alert of a potential incursion, large bonfires lit on the upper shelves passed the message to the nearby fortress as in a "wireless telephone".
And who knows what extraordinary and terrifying scenery painted the fires, towers and ships attacking. Perhaps just imagining these events led the American writer Francis Marion Crawford to dwell in the early 900s in the Rocca Saracena. These are the words with which Crawford described the fortress at the time: "The tower stands alone on this portion of the hooked rock and there is no house that can be seen within three miles ... when I dress it I accompany two sailors one of whom is a good cook and when I am away I leave it in the custody of a small being with features similar to those of one gnome who in the past was a miner who became fond of me a long time ago .. "
San Nicola Arcella today
Currently the town is mainly linked to tourism. An awakening that could lead San Nicola to become a destination of interest certainly took place in the 90s. In that period in fact important interventions were applied in the historic center. Restorations aimed at giving prominence on the facades of late nineteenth-century buildings but also the “cycle of murals”Aimed at narrating the history of the locality. A successful job. In fact, on summer evenings the squares come alive with a multitude of visitors who looking up can admire the splendid church set in a narrow balcony in the heart of the country. But San Nicola Arcella is not just history.
In fact, its beaches dominated by watchtowers and by majestic rocks that play with the sea, drawing natural masterpieces. So it is forGreat Arch, a rocky opening into which the sea water creeps to create a small but enchanting sandy bay. And then the gulf of Policastro , Riviera of the Cedars. San Nicola Arcella turns a fascinating gaze to the sea thanks to the 110 meters of the plateau on which it stands, thanks to that arm of rock that opens into the water below it, outlining the contours of a delightful natural harbor. Impossible then not to understand why the writer Crawford fell in love with it making the streets of the village become the protagonist of his stories. A place to breathe, slow down, find inspiration and give space to the imagination.
