A park to discover

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Category: parcos

Last Updated on Friday, 23 February 2024 11:53

Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 15:40

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The village of Bova is perched on the slopes of Aspromonte, in the Province of Reggio Calabria. The natural environment in which it is located is affected by three landscape systems of great interest: the Aspromonte National Park (of which Bova is a 'visitor centre'), the Anthropic Park of the fiumara Amendolea, whose watercourse has generated, over the centuries, the major physical-structural modifications of the morphological system of the Grecanica Area, and finally the Coastal Belt, as this is visible from the natural panoramic terrace on which Bova is situated.

The fact that the municipal territory falls almost entirely within the Aspromonte National Park www.parconazionaleaspromonte.it created in 1994 and recognised in 2021 as belonging to the Unesco Global Geoparks network, has allowed the diffusion of initiatives and tourist services aimed at the discovery of natural resources, biodiversity and geology, aimed at the diffusion and knowledge but also at the valorisation for tourist purposes of the rich environmental heritage.

In fact, the municipality's territory, characterised by riverside scrubland and hilly habitats, is located in one of the most important bird migration channels, particularly that of honey buzzards, brown kites and storks. There is also a Special Protection Area for birds (SPA) and protected and endangered species of fauna such as the wolf, wild cat and Bonelli's eagle, as well as an important endowment and diversification of flora: fir-beech, larch pine and loricate pine associations.

As far as the rural habitat is concerned, the area offers various resources linked to the presence of the torrents, such as the presence of ancient watermills and oil mills used to process agricultural products, often deteriorated by time and of which the ruins remain.

The landscape, in addition to the centuries-old olive groves and vineyards, is particularly suggestive in spring for the blossoming of the broom and wild broom, whose fibre was once used for the textile production of blankets, the so-called 'broom blankets'.

Hiking trails

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Category: parcos

Last Updated on Friday, 01 March 2024 22:51

Published on Friday, 24 May 2013 15:31

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Kalòs Experience takes care of organising the hiking/naturalistic experience according to the needs of the client with different levels and types whether they are families or friends, students or professional hikers . It enriches the experience with personalised information/suggestions on how to spend the stay, and makes use of B&Bs, restaurants and local guides, and Official Park Guides and AIGAE who will invoice or issue receipts directly to tourists for the services provided.

Indicative cost: for an excursion that lasts the whole day it is 180 euros. For an excursion lasting half a day 80 euros.

EXCURSION ASPROMONTE GEOPARK and ROGHUDI dedicated to the discovery of an Aspromonte Ghost Town (the ancient village of Roghudi), and the Rocca del Drago and Caldaie del Latte Geosites .

Departure: Bova. Destination: Campi di Bova (altitude 1200m asl) | Descent to Roghudi (altitude 500m asl) Duration of the geo-naturalistic and ethnographic route: 6 hours | Difficulty: "T" Length: about 8 km | Height difference: 700 m.

"There is something ancestral about the mountains of Aspromonte, in their order and beauty, in their different heights and in the quality of their light; .... The heights of the Aspromonte rose from the sea abysses, to bear witness, today, to geological adjacencies and superimposed epochs; there you will understand the genuine and virgin hierarchy of nature ... ..., rock is the most ancient; then came trees and plants, the first form of life ... ... and then came animals, and, among these, last of all, man....(taken from - Se verrai in Aspromonte...- by Giuseppe Bombino)".

Since 2021 the Aspromonte National Park has been part of the UNESCO Global Geoparks Network, a group of geographical areas whose sites and landscapes of international geological value are managed according to a holistic concept of protection, education, and sustainable development at both global and local levels. In the Aspromonte National Geopark the primary objective, which is the protection of geodiversity, is combined with sustainable development and involves local communities and their histories, to increase knowledge and awareness of the role and value of geodiversity and to promote from the bottom up the best practices of conservation, education, dissemination and tourist enjoyment of geological heritage. During the itinerary, which can also be done together with Pietro Romeo, who is an AIGAE Guide and also an Official Park Guide, we discover the history of two geological formations that belong to the "Great Stones and Monoliths": the Rocca del Drago and the Caldaie del Latte, we admire the Colella landslide, one of the largest in Europe, and we arrive at the Ghost Town of Roghudi, where time has stopped and the silence is broken by the song of the cicadas and the water beating on the stones of the Fiumara.

You arrive by car at Campi di Bova, and at the junction Roghudi Casalinuovo you take the Roghudi direction. You follow the road until you reach the monoliths the Rocca del Drago and the Caldaie del Latte, and then continue to the bridge over the Furria torrent, to go up to and pass the ancient cemetery of Roghudi and descend towards the Roghudi Ghost Town along the road that once crossed the Aspromonte, the same road travelled by 19th and 20th century travellers such as Edward Lear and Norman Douglas, immersing themselves in the charm of the Aspromonte itineraries.

Roghudi: the evocative charge and stories of this uninhabited place permeate the entire surrounding landscape, and to evoke myths and legends, the two natural geological formations that are symbols of the Greek Aspromonte also contribute: the Rocca del Drago and the Caldaie del Latte. Roghudi stands on an enormous rock tooth in the centre of the immense heart of the fiumara Amendolea at about 500 metres above sea level. The Greeks of Calabria lived here until 1971 when, following a disastrous flood, it was decreed that the settlement be transferred to the coast in an administrative island within the territory of the municipality of Melito Porto Salvo. The houses are located on a ridge overhanging the Fiumara, and it is said that large nails were attached to the outside walls of the houses to which ropes were tied, and at the other end of the ropes children were tied by the ankles to prevent them from falling from the very high cliffs everywhere.

HIKE IONIC PANORAMAS: MONTE GROSSO AND VARDARI POND

Departure: Bova Destination: Campi di Bova- Montegrosso | Duration: 6 hours | Difficulty: "T" Length of mountain walk: approx. 2 km | Height difference: 200 m .Also suitable for families with children.

We set off from Bova where it is interesting to visit the Museum of the Greek Calabrian Language named after "Gerhard Rohlfs", a famous German philologist, linguist and glottologist who with his studies contributed to removing the contempt that had long ghettoised the Grecanic community by hypothesising the continuity between the Grecanic languages of Aspromonte and Salento with the arrival of the first Greek colonisers in Calabria. The exhibition aims to capture the visitor through a journey into the peasant world of Greek Calabria at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, represented through the reconstruction of everyday environments, work tools, and texts that are fundamental for historical reconstruction, such as the "Dizionario dialettale della Calabria" by Rohlfs himself.

By car, one arrives at Campi di Bova (altitude 1,250 metres above sea level), from here one begins a panoramic ring-route on a path starting from the Casello di San Salvatore with a 50-metre difference in height, easy and suitable for everyone, which runs through the woods and allows one to look out over the Fiumara dell'Amendolea, Montalto, Roccaforte del Greco, Roghudi... The walk lasts about two hours. Then we reach the Roghudi- Casalinuovo crossroads and take the Casalinuovo direction, continuing after a few hundred metres on the dirt road that enters the forest among majestic trees interrupted by beams of light, with no difference in height, and slightly downhill in the final part until we reach the Laghetto di Vardari, where there is a beautiful picnic and barbecue area with a spring water source. Here the views change, we look out over the Ionian Sea ranging from Locri to Bova. The duration of the walk is about 1 hour.

EXCURSION MULINI & CATOJ: from Bova to Palizzi to discover an ancient mountain road among the scents of vineyards and olive trees.

Departure: Bova Destination: Palizzi | Duration: 8 hours | Difficulty: "T" Length: about 12 km | Height difference: 300 m

An easy route that starts from Bova on foot and arrives in Palizzi passing by the locality Muto where it is possible to see the remains of the Virgolitro Mill where, thanks to the waters of the fiumara di San Paquale, wheat was milled, continuing to the locality Cavalli rich in vineyards and olive groves where it is possible to see the ruins of the old country schools as it was a fertile area until the 1960s and inhabited by numerous peasant families. Near a small country church where there is also water, it is possible to stop for Pic -Nic . We then climb towards Agrappidà to meet the IGT Palizzi vineyards, which breathe in the heat of the earth and the sea breeze one of the most renowned red wines of Calabrian viticulture. We then descend to Palizzi , an ancient Grecanico village renowned for its wine-growing vocation and home to the catoj, the ancient wine cellars that preserve IGT Palizzi dug into the rock.

Palizzi: a suggestive village with a still medieval flavour and atmosphere is picturesquely grouped at the base of an overhanging rock and surrounded by a long and endless path full of caves and megaliths that opens the door to the truest Aspromonte Park. The ancient tradition of using old looms to make traditional blankets survives. Sights: The Castle, of medieval origin, in dark stone, stands on a rock jutting out in the middle of the village. The Church of S. Anna, with its curious bell tower and characteristic stepped dome in Byzantine style.