For foodies
Where to eat well in Calabria
12 towns
Towns holding at least one place a guide put its name to. The ones several guides agree on come first.
San Giovanni in Fiore
Province: Cosenza · 1,049 m
The capital of the Sila Grande at 1,049 meters, Italy's most populated commune above a thousand.
Pizzo
Province: Vibo Valentia · 44 m
A tuff-cliff town over the Gulf of Sant'Eufemia, where a king was shot in 1815 and the tartufo gelato was invented a century later.
Bagnara Calabra
Province: Reggio di Calabria · 50 m
A swordfish town on the Costa Viola where boats with lookout masts still hunt the Strait, and the IGP torrone has been made by hand since the eighteenth century.
Soverato
Province: Catanzaro · 10 m
The wealthiest town per capita in Calabria, built around a white-sand stretch on the Ionian shore.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia · 50 m
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Altomonte
Province: Cosenza · 455 m
A hill town in the Esaro valley built around the highest Gothic-Angevin church in Calabria.
Belvedere Marittimo
Province: Cosenza · 150 m
A Riviera dei Cedri town on the Tyrrhenian, its castle set on the highest coastal hill above a convent that has kept a saint's relics for three centuries.
Isola di Capo Rizzuto
Province: Crotone · 90 m
A promontory on the Ionian coast wrapped by Italy's largest marine reserve, with an Aragonese castle standing on a rock offshore.
San Nicola Arcella
Province: Cosenza · 110 m
A cliff village above the Tyrrhenian Riviera dei Cedri, where a sea arch fronts a cove only reachable on foot or by boat.
Serrastretta
Province: Catanzaro · 840 m
The chair town of the Reventino massif, founded in 1383 in a narrow gorge between two mountain ranges, still weaving straw seats by hand.
Spezzano della Sila
Province: Cosenza · 800 m
A Sila plateau borgo at 800 meters, the gateway to the national park and its high forests.
Trebisacce
Province: Cosenza · 73 m
A Bronze Age plateau above the Ionian Sea whose name comes from the Greek for small table, with a Byzantine mother church below.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Cicala
Province: Catanzaro
A village of 887 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
The 'Pearl of Molise', a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with a medieval castle rebuilt on its summit.
Varenna
Province: Lecco
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.
Rocca di Botte
Province: L'Aquila
At 750 meters on the Carseolani slopes between Abruzzo and Lazio, the birthplace of an eleventh-century hermit and a fief of the Colonna.