Religious itineraries JUBILEE 2025
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- Last Updated on Friday, 21 March 2025 18:41
- Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 15:42
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ASPROMONTE GRECO: DISCOVERING THE ITALO-GREEK SAINTS
A religious-cultural-naturalistic journey to rediscover one's roots organised independently with overnight stay and breakfast in the ‘B&Bs located in the Hamlet of Bova
COST OF OVERNIGHT STAY WITH BREAKFAST IN:
B&B KALÒS and KALÒS ESPERIENCE : €70/night/room (MINIMUM 3 NIGHTS). Accommodation in a double/twin room ensuite, air conditioning/heating, minifrigor, WiFi .
PRETTY GRECANIC COTTAGE: 100€/night/room (MINIMUM 3 NIGHTS). Accommodation in apt with 1 double/twin room, open space , kitchenette, bathroom, air conditioning/heating, minifrigor, WiFi .
DISCOUNTS FOR RELIGIOUS AND ROOT TOURISM:
free of charge information for planning your own trip/visits/tourist .
THE ITINERARY
By virtue of the manifestation of interest of the Region of Calabria to promote Calabria to pilgrims with pilgrim's cards, arriving in Italy on the occasion of the Holy Year (Jubilee 2025), interested in visiting independently Calabria for the discovery of their origins and family history, the B&B KALÒS , B&B KALÒS EXPERIENCE and PRETTY GRECANIC COTTAGE, will give FREE all the information to make their own travel itinerary, to its guests who want to discover the Italo-Greek Saints and the culture and biodiversity of the Greek Aspromonte villages.
The B&B will facilitate autonomous use of the area, suggesting means of transport and timetables for getting around easily (TPL, NNC), giving information for short walks, but also hiking and trekking within the Aspromonte National Park, unique for its biodiversity (from April 2021 also recognised as a Unesco Global Geopark), giving contacts for guided tours (Official Park Guides/Aigae/Tourist Guides) and giving information/contacts for those wishing to walk the Basilian Way (Cammino Basiliano) and the English Path (Sentiero dell’Inglese), both of which pass through Bova.During the stay, days in the Grecanica Area can be dedicated to visiting:
- the Hamlet of Bova with the Gerhard Rholfs Museum of the Greek-Calabrian Language, the Path of Rural Civilisation, the Sanctuary of San Leo (Basilian monk), the Church of the Holy Spirit (consecrated to the Byzantine rite), the Museum of Palaeontology and Natural Sciences of Aspromonte
- the Hamlet of Staiti with the Byzantine Basilica of Santa Maria dei Tridetti and the Museum of Italo-Greek Saints;
- the Hamlet of Gallicianò (hamlet of Condofuri) with the Orthodox Church of Saint Mary in Greece (Panaghìa tis Elladas);
- the Hamlet of Pentedttilo (hamlet of Melito di Porto Salvo) and its five-fingered fortress;
- the Aspromonte National Park with its biodiversity, but also the UNESCO Geopark with the monoliths ‘Rocca del Drago’ (dragon rock) and ‘Caldaie del Latte’ (milk boilers) and with the geosite ”Fiumara dell’Amendolea” (Amendolea’s river);
- the ghost towns of Africo Antico, Roghudi Vecchio, and Casalinuovo.
THE LAND
The Hamlet of Bova (RC), where the B&Bs are located, is one of the ‘Most Beautiful Villages in Italy’ for ANCI, ‘Orange Flag’ for the TCI, and ‘Jewel of Italy’ for the Ministry of Tourism. It has all the tourist services to welcome visitors (restaurants and B&Bs), and introduce them to this ancient part of Greek Calabria. It is 1h by car from Reggio Calabria Airport and 2h from Lamezia Terme International Airport. It is within the Aspromonte National Park, 900 metres above sea level, and overlooks the Sicilian Channel, including in its panorama, the Mediterranean maquis, the sea, the Sicilian coast and the sometimes smoking Mount Etna. It is a mediaeval village whose urban layout has remained intact over the centuries and which over the last 25 years has been the subject of a major conservation project, respecting its environment, culture and history and its Greek beauty and Byzantine refinement, preserved and enhanced to this day. Its community speaks the Greek language of Calabria, the ancient language of Homer, and expresses and preserves Greek cultural identity in its food and wine, music, handicraft traditions and loving hospitality towards strangers, here called filoxenìa. For the communities of Greek Calabria, the guest is sacred.... This way of thinking is part of the Greek history of this land: every traveller could be a God descending to earth in disguise... like a God of Olympus, once the sacred mountain for the ancient Greeks... So in Bova the guest is welcomed as if he were a god, and for this reason hospitality is ‘sacred’.
Greek Calabria is littered with the ruins of Greek Orthodox monasteries and churches. Suffice it to say that in the Hamlet of Bova, the cultural capital of the Grecanica Area, the Orthodox rite was officiated until 1573. Today, in Bova, the Byzantine rite is celebrated during the ‘Strong Periods’ in the Church of the Holy Spirit, consecrated to the same, and also in Bova, in the Sanctuary of San Leo, the remains of the Saint, a Basilian monk who turned pitch into bread, are preserved. During the Byzantine domination, Calabria was a pilgrimage destination for ascetics from Greece and the East: it was in fact the favourite region to receive these monks since Greek was already spoken and it was a mountainous region and therefore rich in places and ravines for meditating and building monasteries and numerous water sources used for ascetic practices, as in Asia Minor. Greek monasticism had its period of greatest diffusion between the 9th and 11th centuries and only from the 12th century was it defined by the Pope as Basilian monasticism to be distinguished from Benedictine monasticism. In reality, the Calabrian monks were inspired more by the hermits of the desert, in particular they followed the life of Saint Anthony Abbot and only later that of Saint Basil. The whole of Calabria was involved in this spirituality, but in particular Aspromonte, the slopes of the Sila Greca, and Mount Mercurion in northern Calabria, compared to Mount Athos in Greece.
There were many Calabrian monks, including San Nilo of Rossano, San Giovanni Theristi of Bivongi and San Leo of Bova whose remains are preserved in the Sanctuary of San Leo in the Hamlet of Bova. The 22 icons that portray them and tell their story are exhibited in the beautiful Museum of Italo-Greek Saints in Staiti, a small village in the Grecanica Area, where it is also possible to visit the Byzantine Abbey of Santa Maria de' Tridetti (11th century) on the road just outside the village. The artistic and literary activity of these monks has left masterpieces of art (icons, frescoes) scattered in the small churches of the ancient villages and in museums, as well as a literary work unique in the world: the Codex Purpureus Rossanensis. Recognition that Greek Calabria is steeped in Byzantine spirituality was witnessed in 2001 by His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who visited the small Orthodox church dedicated to Saint Mary in Greece (Panaghìa tis Elladas) of Gallicianò.
MY EXPERIENCE PROPOSAL FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO HAVE A DEFINED PROGRAMME AND A GUIDE
MY Experience takes care of organising the experience with personalised information / suggestions on how to spend the stay, and makes use of B&B , restaurants and local guides, car hire who will invoice or issue receipts directly to tourists for the services provided.
Day 1 (Friday): meeting point Airport or RC station in the afternoon at 16.00.
Followed by a visit to the Marc (Riace Bronzes) and Reggio Cathedral (jubilee door). Transfer to Bova (dinner in a typical restaurant and overnight stay in B&B in Bova for the entire stay).
2nd day (Saturday): Breakfast in B&B. Afterwards visit of Bova and the Gerhard Rholfs Museum and the Path of Rural Civilisation. Lunch in a typical restaurant in Bova. In the afternoon the Italo-Greek Saints: Sanctuary of San Leo (Basilian monk) visit to the sanctuary, Church of the Holy Spirit (consecrated to the Byzantine rite) Cova Cathedral Isodia (jubilee door) . Dinner in a typical restaurant in Bova.
3rd day (Sunday): Breakfast in B&B. Day dedicated to the Italo-Greek Saints: visit to Staiti Santa Maria dei Tridetti and Museum of Italo-Greek Saints. Lunch in a typical restaurant in Staiti. Afternoon visit to Gallicianò to the Orthodox Church (Panaghìa) . Dinner in a typical restaurant in Gallicianò. Return to Bova.
4th day (Monday): Breakfast in B&B. Departure from Bova in the morning (packed lunch based on Lestopitta, an ancient dish typical of Bova) walk along the RC seafront, transfer to departure points (airport/station).
Proposal 4 days/ 3 nights: the approximate cost with independent travel to Reggio Calabria for:
2 persons Euro 650/person
4 persons Euro 580/person
8 persons Euro 440/person
is inclusive of:
Accommodation in B&B Double or triple room with en-suite bathroom (single with supplement) with room availability from 19.00 on day of arrival to 11.00 on day of departure.
Overnight stays: 3 nights with self-service breakfast
Dinners: n° 3 c/o typical restaurants (drinks and service included)
Lunches: 2 at typical restaurants (drinks and service included) + 1 packed lunch with typical products (La Lestopitta)
Transfers: to/from airport/station - Bova and destinations, and for all excursions as per programme
1 Official Aspromonte National Park Guide to accompany guests throughout their stay
1 Guide from Bova to visit the village and cultural attractions
ORGANISATIONAL NOTES:
Transfers are by car/bus with driver. Travel costs to/from Reggio Calabria and entrance fees to Museums are not included.
A park to discover...a Geopark to experience
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- Last Updated on Saturday, 20 July 2024 15:29
- Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 15:40
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The village of Bova is perched on the slopes of Aspromonte, in the Province of Reggio Calabria. The natural environment in which it is located is affected by three landscape systems of great interest: the Aspromonte National Park (of which Bova is a 'visitor centre'), the Anthropic Park of the fiumara Amendolea, whose watercourse has generated, over the centuries, the major physical-structural modifications of the morphological system of the Grecanica Area, and finally the Coastal Belt, as this is visible from the natural panoramic terrace on which Bova is situated.
The fact that the municipal territory falls almost entirely within the Aspromonte National Park www.parconazionaleaspromonte.it created in 1994 and recognised in 2021 as belonging to the Unesco Global Geoparks network, has allowed the diffusion of initiatives and tourist services aimed at the discovery of natural resources, biodiversity and geology, aimed at the diffusion and knowledge but also at the valorisation for tourist purposes of the rich environmental heritage.
In fact, the municipality's territory, characterised by riverside scrubland and hilly habitats, is located in one of the most important bird migration channels, particularly that of honey buzzards, brown kites and storks. There is also a Special Protection Area for birds (SPA) and protected and endangered species of fauna such as the wolf, wild cat and Bonelli's eagle, as well as an important endowment and diversification of flora: fir-beech, larch pine and loricate pine associations.
As far as the rural habitat is concerned, the area offers various resources linked to the presence of the torrents, such as the presence of ancient watermills and oil mills used to process agricultural products, often deteriorated by time and of which the ruins remain.
The landscape, in addition to the centuries-old olive groves and vineyards, is particularly suggestive in spring for the blossoming of the broom and wild broom, whose fibre was once used for the textile production of blankets, the so-called 'broom blankets'.
Hiking trails
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- Last Updated on Friday, 01 March 2024 22:51
- Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 15:31
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Kalòs Experience takes care of organising the hiking/naturalistic experience according to the needs of the client with different levels and types whether they are families or friends, students or professional hikers . It enriches the experience with personalised information/suggestions on how to spend the stay, and makes use of B&Bs, restaurants and local guides, and Official Park Guides and AIGAE who will invoice or issue receipts directly to tourists for the services provided.
Indicative cost: for an excursion that lasts the whole day it is 180 euros. For an excursion lasting half a day 80 euros.
EXCURSION ASPROMONTE GEOPARK and ROGHUDI dedicated to the discovery of an Aspromonte Ghost Town (the ancient village of Roghudi), and the Rocca del Drago and Caldaie del Latte Geosites .
Departure: Bova. Destination: Campi di Bova (altitude 1200m asl) | Descent to Roghudi (altitude 500m asl) Duration of the geo-naturalistic and ethnographic route: 6 hours | Difficulty: "T" Length: about 8 km | Height difference: 700 m.
"There is something ancestral about the mountains of Aspromonte, in their order and beauty, in their different heights and in the quality of their light; .... The heights of the Aspromonte rose from the sea abysses, to bear witness, today, to geological adjacencies and superimposed epochs; there you will understand the genuine and virgin hierarchy of nature ... ..., rock is the most ancient; then came trees and plants, the first form of life ... ... and then came animals, and, among these, last of all, man....(taken from - Se verrai in Aspromonte...- by Giuseppe Bombino)".
Since 2021 the Aspromonte National Park has been part of the UNESCO Global Geoparks Network, a group of geographical areas whose sites and landscapes of international geological value are managed according to a holistic concept of protection, education, and sustainable development at both global and local levels. In the Aspromonte National Geopark the primary objective, which is the protection of geodiversity, is combined with sustainable development and involves local communities and their histories, to increase knowledge and awareness of the role and value of geodiversity and to promote from the bottom up the best practices of conservation, education, dissemination and tourist enjoyment of geological heritage. During the itinerary, which can also be done together with Pietro Romeo, who is an AIGAE Guide and also an Official Park Guide, we discover the history of two geological formations that belong to the "Great Stones and Monoliths": the Rocca del Drago and the Caldaie del Latte, we admire the Colella landslide, one of the largest in Europe, and we arrive at the Ghost Town of Roghudi, where time has stopped and the silence is broken by the song of the cicadas and the water beating on the stones of the Fiumara.
You arrive by car at Campi di Bova, and at the junction Roghudi Casalinuovo you take the Roghudi direction. You follow the road until you reach the monoliths the Rocca del Drago and the Caldaie del Latte, and then continue to the bridge over the Furria torrent, to go up to and pass the ancient cemetery of Roghudi and descend towards the Roghudi Ghost Town along the road that once crossed the Aspromonte, the same road travelled by 19th and 20th century travellers such as Edward Lear and Norman Douglas, immersing themselves in the charm of the Aspromonte itineraries.
Roghudi: the evocative charge and stories of this uninhabited place permeate the entire surrounding landscape, and to evoke myths and legends, the two natural geological formations that are symbols of the Greek Aspromonte also contribute: the Rocca del Drago and the Caldaie del Latte. Roghudi stands on an enormous rock tooth in the centre of the immense heart of the fiumara Amendolea at about 500 metres above sea level. The Greeks of Calabria lived here until 1971 when, following a disastrous flood, it was decreed that the settlement be transferred to the coast in an administrative island within the territory of the municipality of Melito Porto Salvo. The houses are located on a ridge overhanging the Fiumara, and it is said that large nails were attached to the outside walls of the houses to which ropes were tied, and at the other end of the ropes children were tied by the ankles to prevent them from falling from the very high cliffs everywhere.
HIKE IONIC PANORAMAS: MONTE GROSSO AND VARDARI POND
Departure: Bova Destination: Campi di Bova- Montegrosso | Duration: 6 hours | Difficulty: "T" Length of mountain walk: approx. 2 km | Height difference: 200 m .Also suitable for families with children.
We set off from Bova where it is interesting to visit the Museum of the Greek Calabrian Language named after "Gerhard Rohlfs", a famous German philologist, linguist and glottologist who with his studies contributed to removing the contempt that had long ghettoised the Grecanic community by hypothesising the continuity between the Grecanic languages of Aspromonte and Salento with the arrival of the first Greek colonisers in Calabria. The exhibition aims to capture the visitor through a journey into the peasant world of Greek Calabria at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, represented through the reconstruction of everyday environments, work tools, and texts that are fundamental for historical reconstruction, such as the "Dizionario dialettale della Calabria" by Rohlfs himself.
By car, one arrives at Campi di Bova (altitude 1,250 metres above sea level), from here one begins a panoramic ring-route on a path starting from the Casello di San Salvatore with a 50-metre difference in height, easy and suitable for everyone, which runs through the woods and allows one to look out over the Fiumara dell'Amendolea, Montalto, Roccaforte del Greco, Roghudi... The walk lasts about two hours. Then we reach the Roghudi- Casalinuovo crossroads and take the Casalinuovo direction, continuing after a few hundred metres on the dirt road that enters the forest among majestic trees interrupted by beams of light, with no difference in height, and slightly downhill in the final part until we reach the Laghetto di Vardari, where there is a beautiful picnic and barbecue area with a spring water source. Here the views change, we look out over the Ionian Sea ranging from Locri to Bova. The duration of the walk is about 1 hour.
EXCURSION MULINI & CATOJ: from Bova to Palizzi to discover an ancient mountain road among the scents of vineyards and olive trees.
Departure: Bova Destination: Palizzi | Duration: 8 hours | Difficulty: "T" Length: about 12 km | Height difference: 300 m
An easy route that starts from Bova on foot and arrives in Palizzi passing by the locality Muto where it is possible to see the remains of the Virgolitro Mill where, thanks to the waters of the fiumara di San Paquale, wheat was milled, continuing to the locality Cavalli rich in vineyards and olive groves where it is possible to see the ruins of the old country schools as it was a fertile area until the 1960s and inhabited by numerous peasant families. Near a small country church where there is also water, it is possible to stop for Pic -Nic . We then climb towards Agrappidà to meet the IGT Palizzi vineyards, which breathe in the heat of the earth and the sea breeze one of the most renowned red wines of Calabrian viticulture. We then descend to Palizzi , an ancient Grecanico village renowned for its wine-growing vocation and home to the catoj, the ancient wine cellars that preserve IGT Palizzi dug into the rock.
Palizzi: a suggestive village with a still medieval flavour and atmosphere is picturesquely grouped at the base of an overhanging rock and surrounded by a long and endless path full of caves and megaliths that opens the door to the truest Aspromonte Park. The ancient tradition of using old looms to make traditional blankets survives. Sights: The Castle, of medieval origin, in dark stone, stands on a rock jutting out in the middle of the village. The Church of S. Anna, with its curious bell tower and characteristic stepped dome in Byzantine style.
