Tropea

Wonderful place in Calabria. Great sandy beaches, old town, steep streets, old churches. Tropea is perhaps the most famous destination in all of Calabria. The highlight is the Santa Maria dell'Isola, built on a rock with sea on three sides and a beach on one.

Ringed by cliffs and wonderful sandy beaches, the Tropea promontory is still undiscovered by the big tour operators. The main town, Tropea, easily wins the contest for prettiest town on the Calabria Tyrrhenian coast, its old palazzi built in simple golden stone on an elevation above the sea.

On a clear day, the seaward views from the waterfront promenade extend to embrace Stromboli's cone and at least four of the other Eolians - the islands can be visited by motorboats that depart daily from Tropea in the summer.

Accomodations are good, and beach addicts will not be disappointed by the choice of magnificent sandy bays within easy reach of here. Some of the best are located a little further south at Capo Vaticano and north at Briatico.

In Tropea's harmonious warren of lanes, seek out the old Norman Cattedrale, whose interior displays a couple of unexploded US bombs from World War II, with grateful prayer to the Madonna attached to each.

From belvedere at the bottom of the main square, Piazza Ercole, the church and Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria della Isola glistens on a rocky pormontory above an aquamarine sea. Stroll out to visit the church on a path lined wiht fishermen's caves. Of Basilian origin, the church was remodeled in Gothic style, then given another face-lift after an earthquake in 1905. The interior has an 18th-century nativity and some fragments of medieval tombs.