Parco Nazionale
Parco Nazionale in Calabria
16 towns
Calabria holds 16 Parco Nazionale sites inside our catalogue. They cluster in the Cosenza, Reggio di Calabria, and Catanzaro provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Corigliano-Rossano, Saracena, and Cerchiara di Calabria. 13 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Corigliano-Rossano
Province: Cosenza · 219 m
The Sibari plain city merged in 2018 from two older towns, one built around a Norman castle and the other around a Byzantine manuscript tradition.
Saracena
Province: Cosenza · 606 m
A 606-meter Pollino borgo named for its Saracen souk and protected by Slow Food for a passito Moscato traced to the sixteenth century.
Cerchiara di Calabria
Province: Cosenza · 650 m
A village at 650 meters below a mountain rock sanctuary, with a sulphurous cave feeding the thermal springs beneath it.
Gerace
Province: Reggio di Calabria · 470 m
A 470-meter conglomerate rock above the Locride, holding Calabria's largest cathedral.
Alessandria del Carretto
Province: Cosenza · 1,043 m
The highest village in the Pollino at 1,043 meters, the only Italian commune carrying its founder's full name, with a fir-tree ritual every 3 May.
Bova
Province: Reggio di Calabria · 820 m
The capital of the Bovesìa, a 416-resident Aspromonte hilltop borgo at 820m and the cultural centre of the Grecanic minority, where the Calabrian-Greek dialect descended from Byzantine-era Greek is still spoken by elders.
Laino Borgo
Province: Cosenza · 582 m
A village on the Lao river canyon, at the western entrance to Pollino National Park, known as Calabria's rafting capital.
Morano Calabro
Province: Cosenza · 694 m
A conical hill of stone houses stacked under a Norman-Swabian castle at the southern gate of the Pollino, called Italy's nativity village.
Spezzano della Sila
Province: Cosenza · 800 m
A Sila plateau borgo at 800 meters, the gateway to the national park and its high forests.
Taverna
Province: Catanzaro · 530 m
A hilltown at the foot of a mountain plateau, its stone core arranged around a fifteenth-century Dominican church.
Aieta
Province: Cosenza · 524 m
An eagle's-nest village in the western Pollino, with one of the few sixteenth-century Renaissance palazzi standing in Calabria.
Mormanno
Province: Cosenza · 840 m
A Pollino mountain borgo at 840 meters between the Costa and Vernita ridges, known for lentils, white poverelli beans and the bocconotto pastry.
Praia a Mare
Province: Cosenza · 10 m
A Tyrrhenian beach town in the Gulf of Policastro, backed by mountains and facing an offshore island.
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.
Scilla
Province: Reggio di Calabria · 91 m
Homer's sea-monster headland on the Costa Viola, the Castello Ruffo on the cliff above Chianalea and the swordfish boats working the Strait below.
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.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Campi Salentina
Province: Lecce
A Salento plain town fifteen kilometers north of Lecce, rebuilt after the Saracen raids of 926 and later raised to a marquisate.
Loreto Aprutino
Province: Pescara
A hilltop town at 290 meters in the Aprutino olive country, with a fourteenth-century Judgment fresco and a Castelli majolica collection.
Ascea
Province: Salerno
Two villages, a hilltown at 230 meters and a Cilento marina, with Parmenides and Zeno's Eleatic school in the ruins of Greek Velia below.
Vico del Gargano
Province: Foggia
A Gargano hill town at 445 meters where a Norman castle, a kiss alley, and DOP citrus terraces step down toward the Adriatic.
Mantova
Province: Mantova
A Gonzaga capital at 19 meters, encircled on three sides by lakes the Mincio formed in the twelfth century, UNESCO-listed together with Sabbioneta since 2008.