TRAVEL FEATURE - ITALY
EMILIO SALVATORI & CRISTINA ZOLI
COAST OF THE GODS
It is following the suggestions of an ancient Roman road that we set out to discover a region as beautiful as it is little known , Calabria . A consular road built to connect , ab Regio ad Capuam ( from Reggio Calabria to Capua ), Sicily and Rome by the consul Publio Popilio Lenate in 132 BC , and which for this reason takes the name of Via Popilia .
A journey that begins in Laino Borgo in the heart of the Pollino National Park and continues , after crossing the Lao river , towards the town of Mormanno . The road to get there is tasty , both for the pleasure of a guide and for the beauty of the landscape in which we are immersed . And here we are , curve after curve , in front of this magical country . Mormanno is striking for its structure where the houses are close together , up to the top of the hill . A show that only after about twenty kilometres is renewed in front of the vision of Morano
Calabro , the Roman Muranum , one of the most important rest stops on the Via Popilia .
Arriving in Morano from what was once the “ State road 19 delle Calabrie ”, here we see the profiles of the Norman castle from afar , Swabian announcing the town by drawing its skyline . The road gradually becomes flatter until it meets , after Spezzano Albanese , the town of Tarsia , under which an artificial lake , fed by the waters of the Crati river stretches with its natural reserve of great beauty .
The fascinating legend of Alaric , the king of the Goths who went down in history for the " Sack of Rome ", is linked to the Crati river . The legend tells that Alaric died right in Cosenza and the Goths , right here , diverted the river from its course to bury their king in the middle of the riverbed together with his treasures and then return to make the river flow to erase all the traces that they would lead to
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