The Sila
A plateau of woods and lakes at twelve hundred metres, an hour from the sea and fifteen degrees cooler.
The Sila is not a mountain range but a tableland: a broad plateau lying almost entirely between a thousand and twelve hundred metres, with rounded summits that only just top eighteen hundred. You climb up from Cosenza or from Crotone in barely an hour, and in that hour the landscape changes completely: the olives disappear, the Calabrian pine woods begin, and the temperature drops by fifteen degrees.
The lakes that look natural
The three main lakes are man-made, and that is the first thing to know because you would never say so. They come from dams built between the wars to generate hydroelectric power, and in the meantime the wood has taken them back: the shores are wooded down to the water and in many places there is no sign of the works at all. Cecita is the largest, and also the easiest to reach from the Cosenza side.
The Giants
In the Fallistro reserve a group of centuries-old Calabrian pines survives, over forty metres tall, spared from felling because they belonged to a family that decided not to sell them. They are called the Giants of the Sila and are visited on a short, level path, suitable for anyone with children.
The place you go up to when the beach is no longer bearable.
What people staying on the coast actually use it for
Getting there
From the Ionian coast near Crotone you climb the road to San Giovanni in Fiore; from Cosenza you reach Cecita in about forty minutes. The roads are narrow but in good condition, and a camper takes them without trouble outside the snow season.