Calabria, from the Costa degli Dei to the forests of the Sila

From the sea to the mountains

In Calabria, the road keeps switching between the sea and the mountains. The region is a narrow peninsula between the Tyrrhenian and the Ionian Seas, and plains cover less than a tenth of it. The loop first follows the west coast, runs along the Strait of Messina facing Sicily, reaches the Ionian coast, then climbs up to the forests of the Sila.

At the start, the Costa degli Dei strings together fifty-five kilometres of sand and coves between Pizzo and Nicotera. In Pizzo, the Aragonese castle bears the name of Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law and former King of Naples. Murat landed at Pizzo on 8 October 1815 to win back his kingdom; arrested the same day, he was shot at the castle five days later.

Further south, Tropea is built on the edge of a cliff; legend has it that Hercules founded it. Below the town, the sanctuary of Santa Maria dell’Isola stands on a rock that was once an island. From Capo Vaticano, on clear days, you can see the Aeolian Islands, led by Stromboli.

The whole Ionian coast was once Greek. On 16 August 1972, off Riace, an amateur diver spotted a dark arm poking out of the sand. It belonged to one of two Greek bronze warriors from the 5th century BC that had remained on the seabed. The Riace bronzes now stand in the museum at Reggio Calabria, behind a climate-controlled airlock.

At Locri, tradition holds that Zaleucus drew up the first written law code of the Greek world. At Kaulon, the foundations of a Doric temple stand at the water’s edge. The language outlasted the temples. Around Bova, in the Aspromonte, a few villages still speak Grecanico.

From Gerace to the Sila

To escape raids from the sea, the people of Locri gradually withdrew to a rock inland: it would become Gerace. Further north, the Cattolica of Stilo is a small Byzantine church with five domes. It is a reminder that Calabria long prayed in Greek. St Bruno, founder of the Grande Chartreuse, died in 1101 in the Serre, the neighbouring mountains.

In the centre of the region, the Sila — the Romans’ Silva Brutia — is a high plateau of laricio pines, beeches and reservoirs. The abbot Joachim of Fiore, whom Dante placed in Paradise, founded his monastery here at the end of the 12th century.

What not to miss

1. 1The Chiesetta di PiedigrottaA church carved into the tuff beside the beach at Pizzo, peopled with statues hewn from the rock.
2. 2Reggio’s LungomareA seafront promenade facing Sicily and Etna, said to be ‘the most beautiful kilometre in Italy’.
3. 3PentedattiloAn almost deserted village at the foot of a hand-shaped rock. Legend sees it as the bloodied hand of a murderous baron.
4. 4Le CastellaThe Aragonese fortress on its islet, and the statue of Uluç Ali, a local boy who rose to be grand admiral of the Ottoman fleet.
5. 5Santa SeverinaA castle of Norman origin on its spur, and the only Byzantine baptistery in Calabria to survive almost intact.
6. 6Cosenza CathedralThe funerary monument of Isabella of Aragon, Queen of France, who died in Calabria in 1271 on her way back from the crusade to Tunis.

Calabria in pictures

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The five-fingered rock of Pentedattilo.

The Calabrian table

Calabria cooks with chilli. It goes into the ’nduja of Spilinga, a smoked pork sausage so soft you spread it on bread. Tropea’s red onion is eaten raw, and in Pizzo the tartufo, a hazelnut ice cream with a chocolate centre, was born in the 1950s.

Along the Strait, swordfish is eaten in a panino. The province of Reggio grows around 80% of the world’s bergamot, the citrus that scents eau de Cologne. In the Sila, it is caciocavallo cheese and autumn porcini; the red wine comes from Cirò, on the Ionian coast.