Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Norman ruins, forgotten by time, which suddenly loom over the horizon, beckoning you to your own private rendezvous with history. Shy but unforgettably hospitable villagers wearing voluminous black skirts or colorful traditional costumes. Delicious fish, vegetables, cheese, sausage, salami, wild mushrooms and figs. Take your place in line to fill your plastic bottle, or ask a local woman to teach you how to balance a terra cotta jar of it on your head. Driving through the towns, you'll see old men playing cards at tables in the main squares.
Grandmothers sit on their doorsteps knitting, weaving or embroidering.
You may see small children, but you won't see many of their parents, who have had to emigrate north or abroad to support their parents and offspring. Someday they will return home to add that second storey to the house they're gradually financing. Meanwhile they'll trudge through the northern snows dreaming of this strange land, which has been conquered and forgotten by every major culture in the Western world. Although never mentioned in the annals of glorious world history, Calabria was a crossroads for Western civilization from the 7th century BC until the last century. Besides painting a vivid portrait of the Taleses, it provides a gripping narrative of the countless outsiders who have conquered here, left their mark and then moved on, defeated by yet another wave of temporary foreign rulers.