Catanzaro

Catanzaro, Calabria’s regional capital, straddles three rocky valleys close to the Ionian shore, a city of bridges, silk-making memory and surprising green depth. Its underground galleries, a sixty-hectare Mediterranean biodiversity park scattered with open-air art, a working opera house and a millennium-old cathedral give Italy’s least conventional southern capital more substance than its reputation suggests.

Why visit

Travellers cross Catanzaro heading for the beaches of the gulf of Squillace, and the city repays those who stop. Its setting is dramatic — the historic centre rides a rock spine between the Fiumarella, Musofalo and Corrache valleys, crossed by celebrated concrete bridges, above all the Viadotto Bisantis, the curving span often nicknamed after its architect Riccardo Morandi. The city was historically Europe’s silk capital, and its self-image keeps the ambition: the regional capital carries museums, the Politeama theatre with a full programme, and the Parco della Biodiversità Mediterranea, one of southern Italy’s most ambitious urban regeneration projects, where botanical collections and contemporary sculpture share sixty hectares of former city-edge land. Underground, kilometres of tunnels — the Gallerie del San Giovanni — thread beneath the old quarter, opening to guided visits as Catanzaro Sotterranea.

Character and history

Catanzaro’s story is one of making and remaking. Founded in the Byzantine period around a castle, it grew into the two-seas city — the saying goes that its wind blows from the Ionian in the morning and the Tyrrhenian in the afternoon — and from the 16th century its looms supplied velvet and silk to European courts, an industry that shaped its guilds, its prosperity and its pride. Earthquakes and war repeatedly wounded the town: the cathedral, first recorded in the 11th century and linked to a Norman church of 1121 consecrated in the presence of Pope Callistus II, was rebuilt after bomb damage of 1943, one of many reconstructions that give the centre its layered, modern-and-medieval texture. The theatre tradition runs from the old Teatro Comunale to today’s Politeama, inaugurated on 29 November 2002 on the site of the demolished Cinema-teatro and named in 2016 for Mario Foglietti, the Catanzaro-born director who had led it. The Biodiversity Park, opened on a regenerated tract of central land, is the most visible act of the city’s latest reinvention.

What to see

The Theatre Politeama Mario Foglietti is the city’s cultural engine, its programmes spanning opera, theatre and civic events; even when no performance fits your dates, the building anchors the centre. The Duomo di Catanzaro, the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, seat of the archdiocese, carries its thousand years of damage-and-renewal history in a dignified 20th-century form with neo-Romanesque detailing. The Park della Biodiversità Mediterranea is the city’s showpiece: botanical paths, a lake, the Museo Storico Militare Brigata Catanzaro and an open-air exhibition of works by international artists across a vast green slope. The Catanzaro Sotterranea experience takes you into the Gallerie del San Giovanni, kilometres of tunnel beneath the historic centre associated with the old Norman castle — a guided, bookable visit into the city’s parallel underground world.

How to experience

Give the city a day structured around its three levels. Morning: walk the historic centre’s ridge from the cathedral towards the viewpoints over the Fiumarella, with the Bisantis bridge photographed from the Corrado Alvaro walkways; the city’s three-valley geography explains itself best on foot. Midday: head into the Parco della Biodiversità Mediterranea, where shade, art installations and the military museum absorb a couple of hours easily. Afternoon or evening: book ahead for a Catanzaro Sotterranea tour — numbers are limited and schedules depend on the cooperative running them — or take in a performance at the Politeama if the season is on. Catanzaro’s food identity is hearty and distinctive: the stuffed ‘ndaia sausage, pasta alla catanzarese and the pastries of the old centre. The city makes a practical base for the Ionian coast and the Sila foothills alike, with the beaches of Catanzaro Lido a short urban-transport ride away.

Practical planning

Catanzaro is reached by the A2 motorway and by rail on two lines — the coastal Ionian line to Catanzaro Lido and the Paola–Cosenza line to Catanzaro Catanzaro station — with the nearest airports at Lamezia Terme and Crotone. The historic centre is steep and partly stepped; comfortable shoes are essential, and the funicular-type urban connections help with the valley geography. The underground tours and theatre programmes run to their own calendars, so check visit.catanzaro.it and the theatre’s site for current arrangements rather than relying on published schedules. Spring and autumn are the best walking weather; summer is hot in the valley streets, though the park and the nearby coast temper it. Museums and the park’s military collection keep hours that change seasonally — verify before visiting.

Nearby places

The beaches and promenade of the gulf of Squillace lie below the city. Santa Severina offers one of Calabria’s finest castle-and-borgo ensembles inland, and Le Castella its most theatrical seaside fortress. The Sila plateau provides mountain forests within an hour, and to the north the archaeological pair of Cassano all’Ionio and ancient Sybaris extends the route towards the Pollino.