Calabria

Calabria, formerly Brutium, is a region in southern Italy which occupies the "toe" of the Italian peninsula south of Naples. It is bounded in the north by the region of Basilicata, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the Ionian Sea. Calabria faces the island of Sicily across the Strait of Messina. The region covers 15,080 km² and has a population of 2.05 million.

The region is divided into five provinces: Cosenza, Crotone, Reggio di Calabria, Vibo Valencia, and Catanzaro. Catanzaro has been the regional capital since 1970, but despite this the regional Parliament is hosted in the former capital of Reggio di Calabria. The switchover to Catanzaro as capital of Calabria was the cause of riots in 1970.

After several wars with rival Italian tribes, Calabria became thoroughly Romanized, through population by Roman soldier-colonies. Many Romans, including Cicero, had vacation homes in Vibo Valentia. Calabria was for many years part of the Roman Empire and after its fall, was devastated during the Gothic War before it came under the rule of a local dux for the Byzantine Empire. In the 9th and 10th centuries, Calabria, which had been the rich breadbasket of Rome before Egypt was conquered, was the borderland between Byzantine rule and the Arab emirs in Sicily, subject to raids and skirmishes, depopulated and demoralized, with vibrant Greek monasteries providing fortresses of culture. In the 1060s, Normans under the leadership of Robert Guiscard's brother Roger established a presence in this borderland, organized a government along Byzantine lines that was run by the local Greek magnates of Calabria. In 1098, Pope Urban II bestowed on Roger the equivalence of an apostolic legate and the Hauteville clan formed the precursors of the Kingdom of Naples which in one form or another ruled Calabria until the unification of Italy. This kingdom itself came under many rulers: the Hapsburg dynasties of both Spain and Austria; the French Bourbon dynasty, and briefly Napoleon's general Joachim Murat, who was executed in the small town of Pizzo.

Throughout all this, Calabria remained a very rural and exploited region. The Aspromonte, a mountainous region of central Calabria, was the scene of a famous battle of the Risorgimento (unification of Italy), in which Garibaldi was wounded. Several of the important philosophers of the Risorgimento (namely, Bernardino Telesio from Cosenza, Gioacchino da Fiore from San Giovanni in Fiore, Tommaso Campanella from Stilo) came from Calabria, and famous Americans of Calabrian descent are almost too numerous to name.

Calabria is also the home of a small Griko-speaking community in Bovesia, the region otherwise known as Grecìa Calabra. There are also many small towns where Albanian is still the main language.

The seawater around Calabria is very clear, and there is a good level of tourist accommodation. The poet Gabriele d'Annunzio called the seafront at Reggio "The most beautiful kilometer in Italy".

Important tourist sites

Tropea, on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast, is a beautiful city, with a nice seaside, renowned for its sweet onions.
Siderno, on the Ionian Sea coast, has good hotels.
Gerace, near Locri, is a beautiful medieval city, with a norman castle, an ancient Cathedral, etc
Stilo, the home of Tommaso Campanella, with a Norman castle and a beautiful Byzantine church, the Cattolica

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabria