Cerchiara di Calabria

Cerchiara di Calabria sits at 650 meters at the foot of Mount Sellaro, on the eastern flank of the Pollino massif inside the national park. The site has been settled since the Magna Graecia period under the name Arponium, later Byzantine Circlarium, with hermit cells documented on Sellaro by the tenth century. The Santuario di Santa Maria delle Armi, at 1,015 meters above the village, grew in the mid-fifteenth century around Byzantine icons; a small rock chapel was enlarged in the early sixteenth century, the feast falls on 25 April.

Below the village, the Grotta delle Ninfe is a cavity whose sulphurous waters feed a working thermal complex; the Serra del Gufo caves and the Balze di Cristo cliffs add the rest of the geology. Cerchiara is a Città del Pane: large round loaves baked in wood ovens, with a dedicated bread museum in the centro storico.