Hard Times: A Walk Through The Toe of Italy (Other locations...)

Member Name: michaelhudson

Product:	Other locations...
Date:	06/07/03 (198 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Museum

Disadvantages: Just about everything else

Reggio di Calabria was founded by the Greeks, conquered by the Romans, seized by the Ostrogoths, captured by the Byzantines, annexed by the Arabs, ruled by the Normans, and squabbled over by the Swabians, Angevins, Austrians and Aragonese. But all that was then. The great earthquake of 1908 destroyed more than just buildings, and the modern town, stymied by years of neglect and under investment, hollowed out by mass emigration, and entangled by the malign tentacles of the 'ndrangheta (the Calabrian Mafia), owns to its deflation in every bare piazza, litter strewn back street and graffiti coated wall.

ARRIVAL

From the north, services terminate at Reggio Centrale train station or the bus stands in the adjacent Piazza Garibaldi, a grey expanse centred on a white marble statue of the hero of Italian unification, hand on sword hilt and legs covered in black marker scrawl.

Alitalia and Air One operate flights to the local Aeroporto dello Stretto from Rome and Milan.

The scenic route is across the Straits of Messina, hydrofoils (2.60 euro single, 4.20 return; regular departures from Messina) gliding across from Sicily in just under half an hour, slowing to enter the small, semi-deserted port at a concrete berth next to a concrete ticket office.

http://www.fs-on-line.com/home/en/index.htm (trains)

http://www.snav.it/eng/index.asp (ferries to the Aeolian Islands)

http://www.calabriaweb.it/turismo/en/trasporti /traghetti.html (general information)

TOURIST INFORMATION

The main office is in Via Garibaldi just across from the Palazzo del Governo. A smaller booth is located inside Reggio Centrale station. The only English language information I found in either was a booklet sized City Guide.


THE CITY

From the steel gates at the port a long and featureless road extends past the grey Hotel Continental to a small area of gravel strewn grass on which immigrant children stare in

to the middle distance as they rock back and forth on incongruously colourful fairground rides; their parents stick to the peeling benches behind, listless eyes fixed on the final centimetres of cigarette held tightly between their yellowing fingers. The road widens as I approach the messy metal tangle above the stairs down to the underground Lido train station, and an abandoned octagonal building to the right with smashed windows and grimy walls blocks a corner of the view back across to the half-lit hillsides of Sicily, a shade of blue darker than the cloudless sky and a hazy smudge above the sparkling sea. A wooden stairwell spirals down to the narrow beach, running in a gradual curve to the south past the mid-afternoon joggers, young couples on stone benches and old men staring out at silhouetted fishing boats.

Stay on the main road until it bends to the right at Piazza Indipendenza. If you're impatient you can cross now, passing the dark green ice cream kiosk and a clump of tall palm trees on the short uphill walk to Piazza de Nava and the Museo Nazionale. If not, follow the curve of the road into what the fascist fantasist D'Annunzio called "the most beautiful kilometre in Italy."

A wide sweep of parallel streets split in two by a line of palm trees and park benches, Reggio's lungomare (seafront) runs straight on to the horizon, facing Sicily on one side and bleakly anonymous buildings on the other. Some low Greek walls, uncovered in 1913, run periodically along the centre near an ancient Roman thermae resembling the bomb damaged remains of a smashed suburb - small mounds of red brick enclosed by a high metal fence. Keep your head turned to the right as far as Athena's Monument, a narrow rectangular arch of marble facing a concrete amphitheatre which marks the landing of King Vittorio Emanuele III in the town. D'Annunzio's kilometre grinds to a halt here, irrevocably ruined by the screeching sound of br
akes and the thick mass of overhead cables as trains ascend for the final curve before Reggio Centrale.

Cross the road for the Villa Communale - public gardens offering nothing but shade and a few tacky fairground rides - or leave the seafront behind and continue on to the train station, an insipid shell of a building that houses a tourist information office clearly inspired by late Soviet era department stores. Unless you're taking in a football game at the Stadio Communale - where Reggina currently maintain a precarious existence in Serie A - there's really no need to go any further south. Cross the piazza, turn left at McDonald's, and start the long march along Corso Garibaldi.

There are times in a journey when you feel yourself trapped, held in place by transport schedules that give you twice as long in a place as you're ever likely to need. Overheating in the afternoon sun, passing closed shops and potholes, each step took me nearer to the end but further into the middle. Piazza Duomo opens to the right - deserted stalls, a bus queue and an inauthentic looking child's toy of a cathedral with too bright walls and too small windows. Cross the square, turn left into Via Campanella and then right into Via Castello for the slightly more interesting Aragonese Fortress. Semi-ruined and almost 1,500 years old in places, the high towers look down on a scruffy park dotted with middle aged men enjoying an outdoor siesta.

Hurry back down to Corso Garibaldi, turning right and continuing past Piazza Italia- ripped up by archaeological excavations at the foot of a statue of Italy calling her sons to the cause of national unity-in the direction of the Museo Nazionale.

THE NATIONAL MUSEUM AND THE WARRIORS OF RIACE

Excluding the walk along the seafront, the National Museum would probably rank as number one of one on most objective lists of reasons to visit the city. Most of the museum's collection comes from th
e 235-hectare site at Locri, including the carved terracotta tablets from the sanctuary of Persephone depicting episodes of her abduction by Hades, god of the underworld, and a wonderful array of bronze mirrors, terracotta statues, Greek and Roman coins, funerary implements and thirty-nine tablets showing the judicial system of the city. Artefacts come from every Greek colony in Calabria - vases, mirrors, ceramics and utensils from Reggio, Matauros, Krimissa, Medma, Kaulonia and Laos, while the art gallery holds two Antonello da Messina masterpieces. But the real highlights are downstairs.

The Warriors of Riace were discovered off the coast of Calabria in 1972. Lying eight metres below the surface, and visible merely by a single arm sticking out of the sediment, the two bronze statues were sculpted in the 5th century BC and lost when their transport ship sank. The larger of the two statues stands just over two metres high and weighs 250 kilos. Youthful and muscular, he strides forward with a head half turned in a gesture of defiance against an unknown opponent. The detail of his facial hair and muscle structure is extraordinary, set off by copper lips and breastplate and inlaid eyes and teeth. The smaller statue is of an older man, more contemplative and less defined. The raised left shoulder and the anatomy of his back dates the sculpture to the period around 420BC, approximately thirty years after the first warrior was completed. The position of the hands and arms suggest that both were originally carrying weapons, though only a single shield handle was discovered intact.

Nearby is the Philosopher's Head, an intense head without a body discovered in another Greek shipwreck with a furrowed brow between arched eyebrows and a visibly receding hairline. Completed by narrowed eyes, a hooked nose and a long, wavy beard, the face is wonderfully engrossing.


ADMISSION 5 euro

OPENING TIMES 9-1.30 and 3.30-7 daily.


PRACTICALITIES

There's really no need to stay overnight in the city unless you arrive late and plan an early morning start to Sicily or the Aspromonte Massif. By far the best place to stay is the Hotel Mundial on Via Gaeta (just to the right as you exit Reggio Centrale). The telephone number is 0965 332255.

Hydrofoils from Reggio are for foot passengers only. If you're taking a car across to Sicily, you'll need to take a ferry from Villa San Giovanni.

Get off the train at Reggio Lido station for the port and museum.

The City Pride Pub (599 Corso Garibaldi) seemed to be the most popular in town.

There's an internet café on Via de Nava just to the left as you exit the museum. There's also a small supermarket a little further on.

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