The Riviera dei Cedri
The upper Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria, where they grow a citrus fruit almost nobody else grows.
The Riviera dei Cedri is the first Calabria you meet coming down from the north, and it starts just past the Basilicata border. It takes its name from the citron, the thick-skinned citrus fruit that has been grown here for centuries in a narrow coastal strip and which grows practically nowhere else in Italy.
The citron
It is not a lemon and does not resemble one: there is little flesh, the peel is almost the whole fruit, and it is used candied, in liqueur or in preserve. The local variety, the liscio of Diamante, is also the citron that Jewish communities around the world look for every year for the festival of Sukkot: this is one of the few places in the world the fruit fit for the rite comes from.
The coast
The shore alternates long beaches with headlands. Diamante is the best-known town, with its seafront and the murals painted on the houses of the old centre; Praia a Mare looks out at the island of Dino, which is visited by boat; Scalea has an old town clinging to the slope and a very long beach. Behind them, a few kilometres inland, the climb to the Pollino already begins.
Why it works as a base
It is the stretch of coast from which you can reach most things in least time: the Pollino in an hour, the Arbereshe villages in a little more, the plain of Sybaris and the Ionian in an hour and a half, crossing the region at its easiest point. For anyone coming from the north it is also the first place to stop without having driven all day.