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Often called the Switzerland of the South, Calabria covers the mountainous toe of Italy. Here one finds the most magnificent forests, and the hillsides are silvered with ancient olive trees. On travel between the Calabrian mountains, in a great land of wonderful beauty, in a region bounded with two seas of around eight hundred kilometers coast limit, where for this particular configuration, measureless views are present and where "the nature has plot in a magnificent way the lines that talent and human work must follow, or art efforts can improved". Calabrian land must not only be limited to approach, even if essential, cliffs and beaches but also must look fro the centuries-old roots, the unpolluted and superb environment, traditions and ethnics that has been survived along the time because of generosity of the nature. Closed in the north with the Pollino and Orsomarso imponent relieves, Calabria has a predominantly territory mountainous, large green reserves, and lakes with strong splendor inside Sila, demoted summit to peak into the sea on the Range Coast, very high silver firs and rushing streams on the Serre, the last window on the Mediterranean between the Aspromonte summits.
The synthesis of a trip that different authors had told with precision and knowledge: as a trip fellow of the XIX century aristocrat, Norman Douglas, author of Old Calabria, maybe the best book written about the region, which narrates the atmosphere of the beginning of 19th century where valleys and Calabrian mountains are described with love and wonder. Calabria boasts almost 800 km of coast washed by the waters of the Tyrrhenian, of the Straits of Messina and then, on the opposite side, by the Ionian Sea. Castles and watch towers are also characteristic sights along the Tyrrhenian coast, starting from the one built by Charles V at Amantea, a fortress town that was later embellished by the Franciscans who left several traces of their presence, the most outstanding of which is the church of San Bernardino da Siena (1436). On the Ionic strip there were three city states and three ancient civilizations: Sibari, Crotone and Locri.
Pythagoras founded his school at Crotone, while at Locri Zaleucus dictated his laws, creating the first written code of laws in the Western World. The most prestigious gymnasiums of the Olympic athletes of the time were at Sibari and it was here that Strabo dictated the example that historians were to follow: "seventy days were enough to destroy the rich and famous town. In 572 B.C. the people of Croton defeated those of Sibari". In the early 1980s a famous archaeological find became the symbol of Calabria: the Riace Bronzes. They are the two stupendous Greek statues dredged from the sea and exhibited, from the early 1980s, in the Museo Nazionale della Magna Grecia in Reggio Calabria, one of the most important archaeological museums of all the Italian Peninsula.
One of the two bronze statues is attributed to Fidia,
the master Greek sculptor of the Vth century and famous for the relieves of the
Parthenon. Since their exposure at the Museo Nazionale hundreds of thousands of
visitors arrived in Calabria to discover the marvelous archaeological and
historical patrimony of this region.
Calabria itineraries:
Festivals in Calabria
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Calabria Tourism.
Eternal clashes, legendary stories of shepherds and brigands about inaccessible
paths, a continuous alternate between harmonious relieves and vertical
summits,
unlike places "with fancy and queerness", that fascinate and disconcert, as
vegetation and fauna, unexpected and unforeseen, make you think "to be in
Scotland" two steps distant from the Mediterranean marquis. A world to explore,
where nature is confused with ancient civilization shapes, rediscovering
protected centers, churches, monasteries, castles, ancient palaces, traditions,
art and folklore, languages and dialect always different; and then lots of
amusement occasions for lovers of adventure, of ski, of nature, of hiking, of
extreme sport.
They shared the same roots in Magna Graecia, being founded by Greek
colonists between the 7th and the 6th century B.C., and for a long time they
were in conflict with one another: Croton won the day over Sybaris, but the
succumbed, in the battle of the fair, to Locri Epizephiri. But in the intervals
between the battles, with the inevitable intervention of various divinities,
there were long periods of splendor in the arts and in philosophy.