Calabria Art & Culture: Top 5 Spots You Must Visit

If you’re thinking about visiting Italy, consider going to Calabria! It’s the toe of Italy’s boot, right, that distinctive shape everyone recognizes? Visiting Calabria offers so much more than beaches; it’s a region rich with art, history, and a super unique cultural heritage. You’ll uncover gems from ancient ruins to stunning Byzantine churches. And so, you’ll uncover a past that’s incredibly deep, and surprisingly engaging. This region isn’t just somewhere else to see. Calabria has this depth, it really does, that grabs you!

1. The Riace Bronzes at the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria

The National Archaeological Museum in Reggio Calabria should be like your first stop, because there’s truly no way to see anything else until you’ve looked on these famous statues. Here are these amazing Greek bronze sculptures, now, right, the Riace Bronzes! Discovered way back in 1972 down in the sea, those bronzes represent incredible examples, I mean they are really amazing, of ancient Greek sculpture. These guys, they are so detailed, stand roughly six-and-a-half feet high, were almost certainly crafted around 460–450 BC. Experts, very knowledgeable people indeed, typically think, I mean it seems quite logical, that they depict warriors or athletes; that is that, their original stories, are somehow linked with prominent battles, anyway, victories that helped forge the past. As I was saying, The museum itself is structured to guide everyone, just like you, through Calabria’s complete history, alright?, from the prehistoric times right through the Roman period. So, that gives some context, you know.

2. Santa Severina: A Byzantine Fortress Town

Santa Severina, a spot just inland a little from Crotone, will almost definitely impress, that is, due to the fact it has an outstandingly stunning castle that’s Byzantine. Typically referred to as the “Stone Ship” because that’s its silhouette, it’s a must-see, really. But arguably more exciting, there’s a tenth-century cathedral and this octagonal baptistery you probably won’t believe exist: all just evidence about the town’s importance way way way back. What I am driving at, anyway, is that if visiting Santa Severina offers you an encounter of living history: a town which looks like it refused modernism. So it holds you captive. Every little building you could possibly dream of examining showcases many hundreds of years!

3. Gerace: The Medieval Village

Known right across the nation for being the ‘village of 100 churches’, in Gerace, in this pretty village located within Aspromonte National Park, what you are looking for can almost definitely be described as ‘real Italy’ – the genuine country. I can go on, yet there’s no point, so that will do: here, narrow medieval streets open just out onto historical structures such as this super awesome twelfth century cathedral, one of the most well preserved in southern Italy. Wandering along through Gerace, this can frequently lead to these totally unexpected, undiscovered sites: basically, local ceramic stores which provide hand crafted pottery by many of the neighborhood’s performers. Actually the whole place appears unique.

4. Le Castella: The Aragonese Fortress

You are wanting something a tiny bit ‘wow’? What about Le Castella, that super incredible Aragonese fortress! Now I should just say ‘a bit’ of trivia- this awesome building sits just out on its small islet on the Ionian Sea, very very near Capo Rizzuto. Originally created, actually, way back in the 3rd century BC- in ancient times! – that fortress has witnessed waves that included Normans along with the Angevins – still just standing quite well. By the way Le Castella is quite simply visually interesting and engaging, to point out but a bit of it; you can spend hours only considering photography opportunities- every perspective is totally stunning- or examining what had happened in such walls!

5. The Rock Churches of Zungri

Alright! If you should do an outdoor expedition, this is where Zungri comes to be more significant, even better than expected because of you actually. Almost everybody calls it the “City of Stone”, anyway that small spot hides all those wonderful rock-cut churches of this sort of ancient cave colony that I would actually never guess, except, I literally noticed these: they may be dug in the sandstone, is that something, presenting an insight into the area’s Byzantine-Norman legacy from it, or some other period in antiquity, so if you do actually, somewhat value the historic monuments I had actually briefly went on at Zungri: this city absolutely holds treasures of which the whole region could boast!. That means, in some respects, you should probably be happy for such small monuments: these absolutely provide Calabria’s complete heritage.