Tiriolo, the hamlet of the 2 seas.

Tiriolo is a little village near Catanzaro and settled in the narrowest part of the whole Calabria and the rest of Italy.

From this good position you can admire at west the Tyrrhenian Sea (and the Aeolian Islands if the weather is sunny and clear), and at east the Ionian Sea. For this reason Tiriolo is known as the hamlet of the two seas. Visiting this place is like to travel among history, nature, traditions and archaeology.

It is said, according the theory of the German scholar Armin Wolf, that Ulysses stopped here and this area was the land of the Phaeacians, Alcinous and Nausicaa, told by Homer in the Odyssey. In honor of this, in the 1980s the Calabrian sculptor Maurizio Carnevali created the Monument to Ulysses located near Italia Square.

This square marks the border between the modern part of the village and the oldest one. Here is Palazzo Alemanni, famous for having given refuge to Garibaldi during one of his stops in Calabria.

We start our sightseeing at The Regional Archaeological Museum “Gianmartino” with Felice, member of the Scheria Cooperative, one of the largest community cooperatives in Southern Italy. The Museum houses some of the most important archeological finds they’ve uncovered along this last decade during some excavations in Tiriolo, in particular a bronze tablet with a text of the “Senatus consultus de Bacchanalibus” dated back to 186 BC. and the monumental Brettia tomb. In the same building there is a section dedicated to the Calabrian Traditional Costume, among which the traditional dress of Tiriolo stands out, rich in embroidery and patterns. The traditional dress was linked to the social status of the woman and differed in shapes and colors according to the age of the woman or the occasions of daily life, parties or mourning.

Then we come back to Italia Square for entering into the narrow alleys of the old hamlet. Sometimes it’s happen that during “our discovering tour” a host appears such as a dog or a cat who welcome us and take us around during our walk. We go on and see several noble palces, between them there is the De Filippis Palace, birthplace of the Vincenzo De Filippis who was a mathematician and philosopher of the 18th century, and Schettini Palace with its characteristic rounded wrought iron balconies. We go up along narrow ways until the hill where there are the Sant’Angelo Castle ruins dated back XI century where you can enjoy a breathtaking view.

We finish our day tour with the interesting meeting of the traditions of Tiriolo by visiting the Tommaso Leone’s workshop, a small place but full of history to be handed down with its objects of sacred art and various crafts, but above all with its folk music instruments.

Tiriolo, it’s a great surprise!

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