On arriving in Calabria for the first time, one most likely arrives with preconceived notions of a brutal and harsh reality probably formed by the millions of exiles that left in the past to find work or escape organized crime. I’ve come to Calabria many times, and most recently in 2015 I came on a
If you are lucky enough to be driving south along the the Tyrrhenian coast, at sundown, you will witness a spectacle like no other: the Mediterranean sun descending above the sea becomes an orange red,---- much the same as the over-ripe blood oranges that have suddenly become so popular in our supermarkets around Christmas time----and
Years ago when I first visited Tropea with my father I could not have anticipated my dad's reaction as we approached this gem of a town along the southern Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria! It was to be a little sightseeing detour for me, from Filadelfia, where we had come for a brief visit to family
As a teenager, many years ago, I had visited Pizzo with my father. Then, to my greatest delight, I had found a small town with a main piazza that by sundown had transformed itself into a hip and happening place for young people to meet. The summer months brought all kinds of returning families to
photo by Bruno Spagnolo Somewhere you’ve never truly been is to the Calabria I know. It is the Calabria that persists without regard for the omnipresent fist of the ‘Ndragheta; it is the Calabria that picks itself up after each devastating earthquake, and the Calabria that despite its poverty and the pathetic and brutal attempts on