Palmi: the terrace over the Strait and the city of the Varia

Palmi is the main town of the Costa Viola: a centre built high up on a shelf between Monte Sant’Elia and the sea, with a view that on clear days reaches the Aeolian Islands and the Strait of Messina. People call it the terrace over the Strait, and the nickname makes sense as soon as you reach the Villa Comunale, the public gardens.

Here you can visit the Casa della Cultura “Leonida Repaci”, which holds together Calabria’s oldest ethnographic museum, a picture gallery and a library of more than a hundred thousand volumes. Here, on the last Sunday of August in the years when it is built, the Varia parades through town: a sixteen-metre processional structure inscribed on the UNESCO intangible heritage lists.

Below the town lie Marinella and Tonnara beaches, with the Scoglio dell’Ulivo standing a few metres offshore; above them is the Monte Sant’Elia viewpoint at 582 metres. Palmi makes a convenient base for the whole coast between Gioia Tauro and Scilla.

The centre of Palmi and the House of Culture

You can walk the centre of Palmi in an hour. Piazza Municipio, with the town hall and its gardens, is the meeting point; a little further on opens Piazza Matteotti, which locals still call Piazza Scivola, where a marble column with a Corinthian capital from ancient Taureana has been re-erected. The co-cathedral of San Nicola, known as the Matrice, has a neo-Romanesque façade with a rose window and a four-column portico, and a few steps away stands the Nicola Antonio Manfroce theatre, opened in 1893 under the musical direction of Francesco Cilea, who was born here.

The Casa della Cultura “Leonida Repaci”, opened in January 1982 and named after the Palmi-born writer who founded the Viareggio Prize, gathers the town’s collections in one building: the Domenico Topa municipal library with more than a hundred thousand volumes, a picture gallery with works by Guercino, Corot, Fattori and Guttuso, the plaster-cast collection of the sculptor Michele Guerrisi, the Antiquarium with finds from the Taureana excavations and a music museum devoted to Cilea and Nicola Antonio Manfroce.

The Raffaele Corso Museum of Ethnography and Folklore

Inside the Casa della Cultura the most visited collection is the Raffaele Corso Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, founded in 1955: it is the oldest ethnographic museum in Calabria and one of the largest in southern Italy. It tells the region’s material life before mechanisation, with sections on farming, herding, fishing and the making of bread and cheese.

The rooms that stay with you are the ones on magic and superstition, with amulets against the evil eye and the apotropaic masks that were fixed to house walls, and the one on the polychrome pottery of Calabrian workshops, Seminara above all. There are folk instruments — bagpipes, tambourines, lyres — and the papier-mâché giants Mata and Grifone, the two figures that open patronal feasts around the Strait.

The Varia, UNESCO heritage

The Varia is the festival that defines Palmi. It takes place on the last Sunday of August and honours Maria Santissima della Sacra Lettera, the town’s patron: the tradition goes back to 1582, when Messina gave the people of Palmi a Marian relic in thanks for help received during a plague outbreak.

The processional structure is sixteen metres tall and weighs around twenty tonnes. Built of interlocking wooden beams, it represents the universe and the Assumption of the Virgin: at the top sits the Animella, a young girl playing the soul of Mary, with the other figures arranged below. It is moved by some two hundred shoulder-bearers, the mbuttaturi, organised in the town’s historic guilds. In December 2013 the Varia joined the UNESCO lists of intangible cultural heritage together with Italy’s other large shoulder-borne structures, those of Nola, Sassari and Viterbo. It is not held every year: editions follow one another at irregular intervals, decided case by case.

Monte Sant’Elia and its viewpoint

Above Palmi rises Monte Sant’Elia, 582 metres, marking the southern edge of the Piana di Gioia Tauro plain. You drive up from the centre in about ten minutes on a road through the pinewood. From the viewpoint at the top the eye takes in the Tyrrhenian coast from Capo Vaticano to the Strait of Messina, with the Aeolian Islands lined up on the horizon and, on clear days, the outline of Etna.

At the summit stand three white crosses, set there in memory of Calvary, and the small church of Sant’Elia built in 1958. The plateau has shaded picnic areas and is one of the places where locals come up in the evening for the sunset, when the sea takes on the violet tone that gave the Costa Viola its name. Halfway down the slope facing Bagnara runs the Sentiero del Tracciolino, the old railway alignment now walkable on foot.

Marinella, Tonnara and the Scoglio dell’Ulivo

The sea at Palmi lies below the town, reached by dropping down from the centre. Marinella is the beach closest to the centre, fine sand with a row of beach clubs and the coast curving north towards the plain. A little further south, at the foot of Monte Sant’Elia, stretches the Tonnara: almost two kilometres of sand mixed with fine gravel, named after the tuna fishery that worked here in the twentieth century.

Just offshore from the Tonnara stands the Scoglio dell’Ulivo, Luvareddhra in dialect: an islet cut off from the coast on which an olive tree grew of its own accord, now reduced to a twisted trunk petrified by salt air. Around the islet there are sea caves reachable by swimming or by boat, and the clear seabed makes this one of the most popular snorkelling spots on the Costa Viola.

Eating in Palmi: swordfish and coastal flavours

The dish you find everywhere on the Costa Viola is swordfish alla ghiotta, listed among Calabria’s traditional food products: steaks cooked with tomato, capers, olives and onion, in season from May to September, when swordfish fishing is under way in the Strait. Restaurants in Palmi also serve it as rolled involtini or grilled, with local oregano and olive oil.

From inland come the extra virgin olive oil of the plain’s groves, citrus fruit and spicy preserves, starting with rosamarina, the paste of whitebait and chilli that people here spread on bread. Fresh pasta follows Calabrian tradition, with maccheroni al ferretto and pork ragùs.

How to get to Palmi

By car, Palmi is reached from the A2 Autostrada del Mediterraneo, which links Salerno to Reggio Calabria: the Palmi exit is about two kilometres from the centre, and from there it is a short climb. The SS18 state road runs parallel along the coast and serves the Tonnara and the seaside districts.

By train, Palmi station is on the Tyrrhenian line between Battipaglia and Reggio Calabria, with regional services connecting Gioia Tauro, Bagnara, Scilla and Villa San Giovanni; the station sits below the old town. Two airports are useful: Lamezia Terme, about 70 kilometres away, Calabria’s main gateway with domestic and international flights, and Reggio Calabria, about 60 kilometres away.

What to see around Palmi

A few kilometres from the centre, on the plateau facing the Tyrrhenian, lies Taureana: this was the city of the Tauriani, a people of Bruttian stock, and today the “Antonio De Salvo” archaeological park covers about three hectares with prehistoric huts, an urban sanctuary, a Roman road, a circular building for performances and a sixteenth-century tower. Beneath the San Fantino complex you go down into the early Christian crypt, considered the oldest Christian place of worship in Calabria: it was a Roman nymphaeum of the second century, turned into an underground basilica in the fourth.

Southwards the coast road leads to Bagnara Calabra and Scilla, with its Ruffo castle and the fishing quarter of Chianalea; northwards open the Piana di Gioia Tauro and the villages of western Aspromonte.

Where to stay: holiday homes in Palmi

Palmi works well as a base for a holiday on the Costa Viola: it has the services of a town, beaches a few minutes away and the motorway two kilometres off, so you can reach Scilla, Tropea or the Aspromonte in a day trip without changing accommodation.

A holiday home gives you your own space and a kitchen, handy when you come back from the beach with children or eat late after a day out. Our places in Palmi and along the Costa Viola range from one-bedroom flats for two to larger apartments for families and groups, some with a sea view, others a few steps from the centre. Check availability for your dates and send us a direct request: we answer personally and find the right home with you.

Frequently asked questions about Palmi

When does the Varia of Palmi take place?
On the last Sunday of August. It is not held every year: editions follow at irregular intervals, so it is worth checking the calendar for the year you travel.

What can you see at the Casa della Cultura in Palmi?
The Raffaele Corso Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, Calabria’s oldest ethnographic museum, the picture gallery with works by Guercino, Corot and Guttuso, the plaster casts of Michele Guerrisi, the Antiquarium with finds from Taureana and the municipal library.

How far is the sea from the centre of Palmi?
The centre sits high above the coast: Marinella and Tonnara are five to ten minutes away by car, downhill towards the sea.

Which airport is closest to Palmi?
Reggio Calabria, about 60 kilometres away. Lamezia Terme is about 70 kilometres away and has more domestic and international connections.

What do people eat in Palmi?
Mostly swordfish, served alla ghiotta with tomato, capers and olives, or as rolled involtini. Local products include the extra virgin olive oil of the plain and rosamarina, the spicy whitebait paste.