Tropea is Calabria’s number one tourist attraction. While this, admittedly, is no reason in itself to go and visit the place, it is also – if you already are in the province – an encouragement to take at least a look.
Tropea – the “Pearl of Calabria”, is a beach resort. Popular beach resorts in Italy resemble each other in many ways, but are also sufficiently different from one another to avoid confusion.
This works a little like it does with genre movies: Westerns, for example, may share visual motifs and even some plot lines, but you don’t have to be a Grade-A movie buff to spot the differences between The Searchers and Django.
Along the same lines, Italian beach resorts are recognizable enough with their kaleidoscopic patterns of parasols and the noisy spectacle of multi-generational families on a day out, but more often than not, you will also see something unique, usually an architectural feature on the beach or a picturesque townscape in the back.
Tropea is fortunate inasmuch as it can offer both: the steep inland cliffs on which the town was built provide a dramatic backdrop …
… while The Rock – graced by a hilltop church on its peak – appears to have landed on Tropea beach straight from another world, out of a dimension not of sight and sound but of divine mind and intentions. Call it a Mecca for Catholics.
Tropea – the Pearl of Calabria
Tropea, in other words, is lovely to look at, but you will find that opportunities for walking are somewhat restricted. You can take a lazy stroll down the streets of the old town, winner of Italy’s nationwide Most Beautiful Village competition in 2021 …
… but finding a route for an entertaining hour-long walk is more of a problem. When you move into the outskirts of town, …
… you will encounter some handsome views, …
… but beyond that, the trails do not take you very far (usually to a beach with some high rocks at the end).
If you are looking for a walkable route, you therefore have basically two options.
Option number one is a hike up The Rock, …
… to visit the Sanctuary of Santa Maria dell’Isola and its garden. (You can enter the chapel for free and will be charged 3 € p.p. for a visit of the garden.)
The garden offers you good views in all directions and is very pretty …
… but also very small. What’s more, wherever it starts to look interesting, the continuation of the footpath is fenced off, a notice informing you that this has been done to protect you from your own reckless self.
I have rarely been to a place – never mind an outdoors one – where so many things are expressly verboten. This includes the obvious things, like: do not jump to your death.
Writing on the plants, by the way, is something else that is forbidden. Shame on you, Petruska and Mikana. We know who you are now.
Alternatively – and possibly your better choice – is a loop around the outer fringe of the old town. Start in the heart of the town centre (where Via Libertà and Via Umberto meet), turn left and continue clockwise, always remaining on the outermost street, that is: the one nearest to the sharp end of the cliff.
This way, you will come across some beautiful churches and Tropea’s best viewing platforms, including the Piazza del Cannone …
… which has been named after the town’s most famous son, the actor Raf Vallone, whose fame in the Anglo-Saxon world rest mainly on his performance as Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge. (He was also a lawyer and a professional footballer who won the league title and the Coppa d’Italia with AC Turin in the 1930s.) (Tropea’s second most famous son, as it happens, is the mafioso Albert Anastasia, one of the founders of Murder Inc. and former head of the Gambino family.)
A walk through the old town will also allow you to peek into the every-day-problems of local citizens: the lack of parking spaces, for example, in streets where everything has been arranged to keep the visitors as far away as possible from every-day problems of any kind …
… and to do some shopping of your own.
The old town is a great place to look for Tropea’s premier souvenir gift: its famous red onions, admired by chefs all over Italy for their delicate and sweetish taste. Light and gently-flavoured, they make great ingredients for summer salads, and you can eat them raw without tears running down your cheek for the rest of the day.
And always have the camera of your mobile phone on stand-by: otherwise you may miss a golden opportunity for taking a snapshot of one of Tropea’s many eccentricities.
In short, when in Tropea: do like the Tropeans, the native and the temporary ones (who, for much of the year, vastly outnumber the locals).
Which means: enjoy the beaches – and in the evenings, a good dinner with a view.
To life!
