Italy Guide
Basilicata and Calabria
Reggio Calabria
As you approach REGGIO CALABRIA, the provincial capital, you travel through some of the most extreme landscapes in the south. Dilapidated villages lie stranded among mountains, which are themselves torn apart by wide fiumare, or riverbeds – empty or reduced to a trickle for most of the year, but swelling with the melting of the winter snows to destructive torrents. Reggio itself was one of the first ancient Greek settlements on the Italian mainland; today, it's Calabria's biggest town by some distance, with a population of over 180,000 – but also one that's been synonymous for years with urban decline and the influence of the ‘Ndrangheta Mafia. Although efforts to regenerate the city are evident wherever you look, there's little to detain you here for more than a day and most travellers use it merely as a gateway to Sicily or the Aeolian Islands.
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