Reggio di Calabria is not a top tourist destination for travelers to Italy. But this web site could change a few minds. It is not Tuscany, but the region and the city have their charms.

The Riace bronzes, here.

I was invited to offer a guest travel post today at www.amoretravelguides.com. My short feature on Reggio di Calabria is here.

This is truly something you do not see every day, or hardly at all — a glowing story about travel in Italy not focused on Rome or Tuscany or Venice, but CALABRIA. Amazing. But that’s what today’s story in The Independent of London offers, without any equivocations or apologies. An excerpt:

“While Tuscany can point to its Renaissance treasures, the Calabrians patiently explain the widespread evidence in their province of great and ancient civilisation. The Bronzi di Riace – full-size bronzes of Greek warriors found in the sea and on display in Reggio di Calabria, the regional capital – and the archaeological jewels of Locri Epizefiri, a walled Greco-Roman town – are held up as proof of Calabria’s status as the cradle of Italian civilisation. It is no coincidence that Calabria’s first indigenous tribe was called the Itali.

“Above all, Calabria, with its turquoise waters, hidden coves and ancient villages, is a place that rewards curiosity. Although their compatriots have long since discovered the region’s charms, it remains largely undiscovered by foreigners. The region, one of Italy’s poorest, is taking a new-found pride in the myriad treasures that have survived down the ages, cut off from the coach-party hordes by miles of twisting country roads.”

Read the whole story. The inset photo shows the coastline of Reggio along the Strait of Messina with Mount Etna looming beyond on the east coast of Sicily. Bella vista.

If you ever travel to Reggio Calabria, you will of course want to see the world-famous Riace bronzes in the national museum downtown. But you will also want to travel uphill to the neighborhood Santo Spirito to the church of Padre Gaetano Catanoso. On the ground floor, just inside the courtyard, are two rooms — both of which he used, one of which he slept in and died in — preserved to honor the memory of the saint.

This video was shot and produced in Reggio by Michael Frierson, documentary film professor at UNC-Grreensboro