Between mystery and nature

We will discover sites immersed in the spirit of the byzantine monarchism, where still today you can breathe an air of yesterday, and be lost in the nature.

At first we will visit the Archaeological Park of Kaulon, considered as a statio, where to stop on the way from Rhegion to Kroton. We will visit the archaeological site (on request you and if the weather conditions are ideal, you can go diving to visit the sunken temple) and the museum. Then, we will go into the backcountry and when arrived by the Stilaro Valley, we will go to the Marmarico Falls, only reachable on foot. If the temperature will be warm you could bathe in its fresh water, to rebound from the long walk. After the picnic lunch we will visit the town of Bivongi and the Saint John Theristis’ Monastery, today it is held by orthodox Romanian monks, and it is the only Greek-Orthodox monastery in Italy.

Once arrived in Bivongi we will continue to feel that special atmosphere, maybe because of the proximity of the monastery and walking along the alleys of the ancient medieval village, you will be immerged in another dimension, far from the chaos to rediscover the beauty and the simplicity which surrounds us. After the walk we taste some Bivongi DOC red wine with salami and typical cheese of the Stilaro Valley. We will stay in Stilo over the night.

After breakfast we visit Stilo. Place of refuge for the monks during the iconoclastic fights and the destruction of Kaulonia, the city was founded in the 11th century. It’s impossible to talk about Stilo without mentioning the Cattolica, one of the masterpieces of the byzantine architecture. It reminds some of the sacred buildings in Armenia or Georgia, and thanks to its style of the five domes went all around the world; and Tommaso Campanella, writer and philosopher of the 16th century, celebrated author of “City of the Sun”, where he describes an ideal and utopian city, heir of his predecessors such as Thomas More, Plato and Francis Bacon.

We follow the tour along the places of the basilean monks stopping to the Mount Stella Hermitage, where we go down into the cave. Last stop is at the Ecomuseum of the Iron-works and iron-foundries of Calabria, which attests the intensive steel and mining operations of the Stilaro Valley, thanks to it we can admire in this part of Calabria lots of ironworks, mines and foundry, which are today sites of industrial archaeology.

The tour will end here, where you are free to choose whether head back to the starting place or carry on with another tour.

In this tour nature merges with the history of these places. We will vist archaeological and religious sites, wonderful stretches of coastline and pristine places.

It is also scheduled a tasting of typical products and red wine DOC Bivongi.