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    Smart Guide Italy: Basilicata & Calabria: Smart Guide Italy, #15
    Smart Guide Italy: Basilicata & Calabria: Smart Guide Italy, #15
    Smart Guide Italy: Basilicata & Calabria: Smart Guide Italy, #15
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    Smart Guide Italy: Basilicata & Calabria: Smart Guide Italy, #15

    By Alexei Cohen

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    About this ebook

    Smart Guide Italy is packed with advice and tips that help newcomers and veteran travelers get the most from their visit to Italy. Along with background information to all major cities and monuments travelers will discover great places to eat, sleep and enjoy the dolce vita.

    Smart Guide is an independent digital travel publisher with 25 guides to all of Italy's cities and regions. Each title in the series provides insights to the most important monuments and useful information for eating, drinking, and having a good time in Italy. Smart Guide also operates a convenient online accommodation service that allows travelers to enjoy local hospitality, lower their CO2 impact and save.

    Other titles in the series include:
    -Cities & Regions
    Rome & Lazio
    Florence & Tuscany
    Genova & Liguria
    Turin, Piedmont & Aosta
    Milan & Lombardy
    Trentino-Alto Adige
    Venice & Veneto
    Bologna & Emilia Romagna
    Le Marche
    Umbria
    Naples & Campania
    Puglia
    Basilicata & Clabria
    Sicily
    Sardinia

    -Multiple Regions
    Northern Italy
    Central Italy
    Southern Italy
    Italian Islands
    Italy

    -Cities
    Northern Italian Cities
    Central Italian Cities
    Southern Italian Cities
    Grand Tour: Rome, Florence, Venice & Naples

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlexei Cohen
    Release dateMar 3, 2013
    ISBN9781301236947
    Smart Guide Italy: Basilicata & Calabria: Smart Guide Italy, #15
    Author

    Alexei Cohen

    I fell in love with Italy while watching the movie La Strada in the basement of my university library. Since then I have met and married an Italian, written and edited several guides and enjoyed a lot of pasta, wine and gelato. I live with my family on the outskirts of Rome and cultivate my passion for Italy a little more everyday. Moon Rome, Florence & Venice is my latest book and a result of months of exploration. I look forward to sharing what I have discovered and meeting travelers in Rome to swap stories over a cappuccino.

    Read more from Alexei Cohen

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      Book preview

      Smart Guide Italy - Alexei Cohen

      Smart Guide Italy: Basilicata & Calabria

      Published by Smart Guides

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2013 Smart Guide Italy

      Other titles in the Smart Guide Italy series:

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Smart Accommodation:

      Smart Guide has teamed up with over 5,000 bed & breakfasts, self-catering apartments and small hotels in order to provide travelers with convenient, reasonably priced accommodation in the best locations throughout Italy. To view all our accommodation options visit our website and choose the one that’s right for you. Enjoy the journey!

      Smart Answers:

      Travel requires making choices. If you have any questions regarding your trip to Italy write to us and we will get back to you within 24 hours. If you have any comments or suggestions that will help improve future editions we’d love to hear them.

      CONTENTS

      FOREWORD

      INTRODUCING BASILICATA AND CALABRIA

      History

      TOP STOPS

      PLANNING

      BASILICATA: POTENZA AND SURROUNDINGS

      Potenza

      Lagopesole

      Melfi

      Venosa

      MATERA AND SURROUNDINGS

      Matera

      Murge Mountains and Basilicata Valleys

      Aliano

      BASILICATA COAST

      Metaponte

      Maratea

      Parco Naturale del Pollino

      CALABRIA: IONIAN COAST

      Rossano

      Isola Capo Rizzuto

      Stilo

      Gerace

      TYRRHENIAN COAST

      Diamante

      Paola

      Amantea

      Pizzo Calabro

      Tropea

      Reggio Calabria

      FOREWORD

      The farther south you travel in Italy the less tourists you encounter. Calabria and Basilicata are no exception to the rule and have been overlooked for decades. Travelers here are not especially pampered which doesn’t mean they aren’t welcome just that they shouldn’t expect the same services and luxuries found in the north. Exploring these regions will require a certain amount of patience and persistence. It will take accepting that trains don’t always run on time and roads are not always completed.

      If you can handle that then you’re in for a panoramic, cultural and gastronomic treat. Both regions offer a plethora of memorable sights and dishes. We’ve included the most outstanding towns and seaside locations in this guide and whether you visit a few or see them all the effort of reaching Calabria and Basilicata will be rewarded. Each destination includes a historical overview, details about the main sights, important events, places to eat and sleep, practical information and directions for arriving. In short everything you need for making your trip a success.

      If you haven’t already found a place to stay you may want to browse our accommodation options.

      Smart Guide provides dozens of convenient bed & breakfast, farmhouse and small hotel offers

      throughout the regions. It’s a cozy and convenient way to meet locals, keep your carbon footprint

      low and save.

      Enjoy the journey!

      Alexei Cohen

      Series Editor

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      INTRODUCING BASILICATA AND CALABRIA

      Italians might smirk or sneer if you reveal your intentions of visiting Basilicata or Calabria. These two regions can’t compete with Tuscany, but there’s still plenty to love about them. Both regions boast unspoiled landscapes throughout their rugged interiors and deserted beaches. And all of it is bathed in history with scattered Greek ruins, Norman castles, and hill towns where B&B stands for Brigit Bardot. Basilicata is the only region in Italy that has two names; if you call it Lucania locals will know what you mean. The older moniker derives from Latin and is either a reference to the woody landscape or the ancient Liky people who passed through these parts thousands of years ago. The Basilicata name was first mentioned in writing in 1175 and originates from Basiliskos who ruled the area in those days.

      Multiple names is just one of the contradictions of a region summarized so well in Carlo Levo’s Christ Stopped at Eboli. Part of the explanation has to do with the seas on either side of a mountainous interior that hinders communication. Some of the most isolated villages in Italy are here, and cartographers have always procrastinated when asked to map the region. It’s no wonder parents worry when their children announce intentions of visiting the area.

      This is Mel Gibson territory and you’ll need a little Mad Max spirit to explore the region. There is a payoff, however, that’s beyond the perseverance of most camera-happy tourists. It consists in natural beauty and timeless traditions. Travelers can expect breathtaking and unusual panoramas, cities crammed with history, and pristine seaside towns with long stretches of fine, golden sand. Here travelers earn each kilometer the hard way, but old Roman settlements such as Venosa, medieval meccas like Melfi, and the Baroque Matera are worth the rigors. More relaxing pleasures do exist by the sea: Policoro is one town to remember.

      Calabria is at the southernmost tip or toe of the Italian peninsula between the Tyrrhenian and Ionian seas. It is extremely mountainous and almost entirely covered by highlands and plateaus. Besides sharing the Pollino Massif with Basilicata, there’s a long coastal chain that ends with the Aspromonte Mountains near Reggio Calabria. Forests and wide pastures alternate with scanty vegetation caused by extensive periods of drought. Although nature is rich in the interior, tourists are generally attracted to the wonderful coastline made up of high cliffs with sheer drops into crystal-clear waters, enchanting coves, and golden beaches.

      Calabria was inhabited since prehistoric times and occupied by Greek, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, and Bourbons. It experienced periods of great splendor and decadent abandon, was devastated by invading populations, and struck by natural calamities, but

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