The best towns you can reach by train that eat well in Calabria
Calabria eats better than its reputation suggests. Swordfish landed on the Tyrrhenian side and cut into thick steaks, red onions sweet enough to eat raw, nduja spread on warm bread, caciocavallo silano aged in the cool of the Sila plateau, and porcini gathered under pines in autumn. The coast is built in whitewash and tufo above beaches of grey sand and clear water, while inland the houses turn to grey stone and pitched roofs against snow. Summer is loud and hot on the sea, but late September and October are when the vineyards and the mushroom woods are worth the journey.
Most visitors to Calabria arrive by air at Lamezia Terme, pick up a hire car and drive straight to the Costa degli Dei, or else keep going for the ferry to Sicily. In August those coastal roads move slowly, the beach clubs are full, and the villages that photograph best are the ones everyone has already seen. The Aspromonte and the Pollino, meanwhile, get talked about far more than they get walked.
The railway runs the length of both coasts, hugging the water for most of it, and climbs inland to the Sila on a narrow-gauge line that most people never think to use. Along those tracks are towns with proper kitchens, fishing harbours, tuna and swordfish traditions, mountain trattorie serving pasta with wild boar. These are the places where the food is good, a dining guide has said so, and you can arrive on foot from the platform.
Of the 45 communes we have mapped in Calabria, 7 qualify as towns you can reach by train that eat well: we have confirmed each is reachable without a car, and a dining guide has named a table in each. The smallest, Spezzano della Sila, has 4,218 residents.
Two more lists worth reading alongside this one: The best hidden towns that eat well in Calabria and The 8 best coastal towns that eat well in Calabria.
Spezzano della Sila
Why visit Spezzano della Sila
The town sits on the Presila Cosentina, twenty kilometers east of Cosenza and on the western edge of the Sila plateau. The borough likely formed at the end of the tenth century, after the Arab raids on Cosenza pushed settlement inland toward higher ground.
The commune's territory reaches well beyond the historic centre. The mountain hamlets of Croce di Magara and Moccone fall inside its boundary alongside the resort frazione, and with them a share of the national park itself: its visitor centre and wildlife enclosures, its stand of centuries-old pines, and part of the largest lake in Calabria.
Snow closes the high pastures in winter; in summer the same ground turns to hiking, mushroom-gathering and grazing country. The old village below and the high plateau above are administratively one place, even though little of daily life in one resembles the other.
La Tavernetta al San Lorenzo si Alberga have been named by a guide.
What to see in Spezzano della Sila
- Santuario di San Francesco da Paola. Convent with attached cloister at the head of the historic centre, the building around which the old town still gathers.
- Chiesa di San Pietro. Parish church in the old village, the main religious anchor of the Spezzano centro storico.
- Chiesa di San Biagio. Smaller historic church dedicated to the town's patron, part of the network of religious buildings inside the borgo.
How to get to Spezzano della Sila
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Reggio Calabria is roughly 170 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October is the long Sila season: the lifts on Monte Curcio stop, the plateau opens up to hikers, and Lake Cecita fills with anglers and picnickers. July and August are the busiest months because the cool air pulls Cosenza and Catanzaro residents up the hill to escape the coast. September and October bring porcini and chestnuts. Sagra della Cucuzza falls in July.
Tropea
Why visit Tropea
Tropea stands on a tufa cliff fifty metres above the Tyrrhenian Sea, on the stretch of Calabria's west coast marketed as the Costa degli Dei. The town has been a port since Roman times and a bishopric since the eighth century, with Norman and Aragonese phases visible in its walls and palazzi.
The Cattedrale di Maria Santissima di Romania was built by the Normans and reworked in the Baroque period; it holds a fifteenth-century wooden crucifix and a Madonna panel attributed to the school of Giotto. The Santuario di Santa Maria dell'Isola, originally a fourth-century cell, sits on a rocky outcrop thirty-three metres above the sea, reached by a staircase cut into the cliff.
The cipolla rossa di Tropea PGI, said to have been introduced by the Phoenicians and noted by Aristotle and Strabo, grows on the volcanic soils just inland. Tropea was named Borgo dei Borghi 2021 by RAI.
De' Minimi have been named by a guide.
What to see in Tropea
- Santuario di Santa Maria dell'Isola. Norman-era monastery on a tufa sea rock thirty-three metres above the water, reached by a staircase cut into the cliff.
- Cattedrale di Maria Santissima di Romania. Norman cathedral reworked in the Baroque period, with a fifteenth-century wooden crucifix and a Madonna panel attributed to the school of Giotto.
- Centro storico sulla rupe. Tufa cliff town fifty metres above the sea, with noble palazzi from the Norman to Aragonese periods along Corso Vittorio Emanuele.
How to get to Tropea
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Reggio Calabria is roughly 88 minutes away by road.
Our tip
Tropea's season runs from late May to mid-September. May and June bring warm sea and the lungomare back to life. July and August are heavy: the centro storico fills with day-trippers from the rest of Italy, parking spreads into the inland frazioni, and the Spiaggia della Rotonda is shoulder-to-shoulder. Ferragosto a Tropea - Processione a mare della Madonna dell'Isola falls in August.
Trebisacce
Why visit Trebisacce
Trebisacce sits at 73 meters in the upper-Cosenza arc, on a hill whose flat top gave the town its name: the Greek Trapezàkion, small table, a literal description of the tabular ground the old town stands on. In antiquity the settlement held the road between Metaponto and Sybaris, twenty kilometres south on the Sibari plain, a position that put it on the trade routes long before the medieval walls went up.
The lower modern town runs along the seafront below; the plateau above keeps the old streets, the mother church, and the walls raised in the sixteenth century against Saracen raids. Inland and uphill, past the modern town, a rock-cut chapel sits inside a pine forest on Monte Mostarico, a different register of building from the stone church and the archaeological trenches below.
Read together, the layers, coastal plain, tabular hill, and inland forest, describe a town that has always faced two ways: out to the sea route and up to the higher, quieter ground behind it.
La Rotonda have been named by a guide.
What to see in Trebisacce
- Chiesa di San Nicola di Mira. Trullo-shaped dome and a tall pyramidal bell tower stand over the centro storico, the church's mass still setting the skyline of the old town.
- Broglio di Trebisacce. Excavated since 1979, the site has also given up a Hellenic necropolis alongside the Mycenaean finds, layered evidence of the plateau's long occupation.
- Centro storico sul plateau. Old town on the tabular hill that gives Trebisacce its name, ringed by sixteenth-century walls built against Saracen raids.
How to get to Trebisacce
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Taranto is roughly 104 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May and June bring warm sea and the lungomare opening, with the plateau still cool in the evenings. July and August are hot on the Ionian coast and the modern town fills with summer residents from the Sibari plain and Basilicata. September is the better month: water still in the mid-twenties, beach umbrellas thinned out, restaurants quieter.
Soverato
Why visit Soverato
Soverato sits in the province of Catanzaro, on the narrow waist where Calabria almost touches itself, its coast facing the Ionian. The modern town runs along the shore, while inland and uphill lies the older settlement, built before an earthquake in 1783 leveled what came before it; the church of Madonna Addolorata still marks that older core, separate from the seafront strip that draws the summer crowds.
Statistical surveys describe Soverato as the highest per-capita income commune in Calabria, and the town has drawn tourists since the mid-2010s, its medical services, schools and long bathing season making it the regional anchor for the coast between Catanzaro and Locri. The wealth and the tourism trace back to the same geography: a beach town that grew rich enough to become the service center for the stretch of coast around it, while its older self stayed on the hill above.
Brezza fish and chill have been named by a guide.
What to see in Soverato
- Spiaggia di Soverato. The beach carries both Bandiera Blu and Bandiera Verde status, the latter marking it as paediatric-friendly. The Gulf of Squillace here stays shallow well out from shore.
- Torre di Carlo V. The tower stands on the seafront as one link in a chain of coastal towers raised against Saracen raids, and remains the most visible historic structure in town.
- Giardino Botanico Santicelli. The garden was laid out in 1980 on ground once used for waste, an early instance of urban land reclamation in the south, now holding Mediterranean and tropical plant collections.
How to get to Soverato
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Reggio Calabria is roughly 110 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the long Ionian season. Water warms early, the beach establishments are open from late spring, and by July and August the lungomare runs at full social tilt, with a nightlife reputation that pulls people from Catanzaro and Crotone. June and September are the calmer bathing months, with the same warm water and fewer crowds. Mercato Settimanale Di Soverato falls in May.
Pizzo
Why visit Pizzo
Pizzo sits on a tuff promontory rising about 70 meters above the Tyrrhenian, at the northern end of the Costa degli Dei. The town's name for its own fortress, Castello Aragonese, has largely given way to Castello Murat, after the brother-in-law of Napoleon who landed here in October 1815 hoping to retake the throne of Naples, was captured by townspeople, and was court-martialled in the building he is now remembered by.
The tartufo gelato has a separate history entirely: developed by local gelato-makers in the twentieth century, hand-moulded into a hemisphere with a molten chocolate centre and dusted with cocoa, it earned IGP status in 2007, the first gelato in Europe to do so. Two unrelated claims to fame, a captured king and a dessert, meet on summer evenings in the cliff-edge piazza where the town still gathers.
Pizzo's identity rests on that pairing: a fortress town that turned a moment of political violence and a piece of confectionery into the same civic memory.
Locanda Toscano, San Domenico Ristorante have been named by a guide.
What to see in Pizzo
- Castello Aragonese (Murat). Fifteenth-century fortress on the headland, its main hall preserved as the room where Joachim Murat's court-martial and execution took place, now a museum to the Napoleonic king.
- Chiesa di Piedigrotta. Set into the cliff north of town, reached through low tufa passages that open into chambers where the carved figures stand at full height, worn smooth in places by damp and time.
- Piazza della Repubblica. Cliff-edge piazza with cafés and gelaterie, the social centre of the town and the place to eat tartufo in summer.
How to get to Pizzo
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Reggio Calabria is roughly 75 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the working season. Water warms by late May, the gelaterie around Piazza della Repubblica run from morning to past midnight in July and August, and the town fills with weekenders from Vibo Valentia and Cosenza. June and September are the calmer bathing months.
Bagnara Calabra
Why visit Bagnara Calabra
Bagnara Calabra is built into the hills above the Tyrrhenian on the Costa Viola, twenty-five kilometers north of Reggio Calabria, with the Strait of Messina opening to the south. The first organized settlement on record was the Abbey of Santa Maria and the Twelve Apostles, founded around 1085 by Roger I of Sicily.
Two things still define the town. Swordfish: Bagnara is the small capital of Calabrian swordfish, and the local fleet still uses the felucca or passerella, a tall-masted boat with a lookout high above the deck and a long bowsprit walkway from which the harpooner strikes; the practice goes back centuries and is shared with Scilla, six kilometers south.
Torrone: Bagnara torrone, a nougat of honey, sugar and almonds, has been made in the town since the eighteenth century and carries IGP status. The Bagnarote women, who carried the catch on their heads up the hills, are a fixture in Calabrian folklore.
Taverna Kerkira have been named by a guide.
What to see in Bagnara Calabra
- Basilica di Maria SS. del Rosario. Eighteenth-century basilica rebuilt after the 1908 earthquake, the main religious anchor of the town.
- Castello Emmarita. Ruins of a medieval fortress on the hill above town, with views down to the Tyrrhenian and across to Sicily.
- Spiagge della Costa Viola. Pebble and dark-sand beaches under steep cliffs, named for the violet light the coast takes at sunset.
How to get to Bagnara Calabra
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Reggio Calabria is roughly 23 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the bathing and swordfish season. Water warms by late May, the felucche head out in early summer, and the beaches under the Costa Viola fill in July and August. The Festa di Maria SS. del Rosario in early September is the main event of the religious calendar. Gran Galà del Pesce Spada falls in July.
San Giovanni in Fiore
Why visit San Giovanni in Fiore
San Giovanni in Fiore sits at 1,049 meters at the center of Sila Grande, inside Sila National Park, the largest mountain commune in Italy by population above 1,000 meters altitude. The town grew from the abbey founded here in 1188 by the Calabrian monk and medieval theologian whom many historians consider the most influential apocalyptic thinker of the Middle Ages.
The abbey gave the settlement its shape: the old town climbs Monte Difesa around the complex, and the built-up core still reads as a place that grew outward from a religious house rather than a market or a port. The municipal territory reaches well beyond that core, stretching across the Sila plateau to take in Lorica, the lake village at 1,314 meters, so that a single commune holds both a mountain town built around a medieval abbey and a lake station given over to hiking and skiing.
The town is in the Città del Vino network. Calabrian emigration history has its capital here, the population of half a century ago halved by departures to Argentina, North America and northern Italy.
A place, then, that reached its greatest size as a religious and demographic center and has spent the decades since sending its people elsewhere while its territory grew to include a second, quite different kind of settlement at altitude.
Hyle, Brillo Parlante have been named by a guide.
What to see in San Giovanni in Fiore
- Abbazia Florense. Founded by Gioacchino da Fiore in 1188, the abbey burned in 1214 and was rebuilt by 1230. The Latin-plan complex survives with a large central cloister ringed by ogival arches.
- Centro Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti. Housed in the abbey complex, the center for Joachimist Studies holds a medieval library and the working archive on Gioacchino's writings.
- Lorica. Sila lake village at 1,314 meters within the municipality, a year-round mountain station on Lago Arvo with summer hiking and winter skiing.
How to get to San Giovanni in Fiore
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Reggio Calabria is roughly 176 minutes away by road.
Our tip
June through September is the green season in Sila Grande. The lakes around Lorica fill with Calabrian families escaping the coastal heat, the high pastures bloom, and the abbey is at its quietest in the early mornings. December through March is the second season: snow on the plateau, skiing at Lorica and Camigliatello, the town transformed from a mountain capital into a winter destination.
More from Anywhere Italy
The best hidden towns that eat well in Calabria- The 8 best coastal towns that eat well in Calabria
- The best towns that eat well in the province of Cosenza
The best hidden beach towns in Calabria
The best hidden towns you can reach by train in the province of Cosenza- The best small towns you can reach by train in Calabria