Bandiera Blu
Bandiera Blu in Calabria
12 towns
Calabria holds 12 Bandiera Blu sites inside our catalogue. They cluster in the Cosenza, Vibo Valentia, and Catanzaro provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Corigliano-Rossano, Roseto Capo Spulico, and Rocca Imperiale. 9 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Corigliano-Rossano
Province: Cosenza · 219 m
The Sibari plain city merged in 2018, home of the UNESCO-listed sixth-century Codex Purpureus and the 1731 Amarelli liquorice dynasty.
Roseto Capo Spulico
Province: Cosenza · 217 m
A Frederician castle on a rock above the Ionian, a former Sybaris satellite city founded in the seventh century BC, Templar legend included.
Rocca Imperiale
Province: Cosenza · 210 m
Frederick II's Hohenstaufen fortress at the Calabria–Basilicata border — a Borgo più Bello d'Italia perched on a hill above the Ionian coast, with the 1225 castello at the summit, a Bandiera Blu beach at Rocca Imperiale Marina below, and the locally-grown limone di Rocca Imperiale IGP scenting the orchards.
San Nicola Arcella
Province: Cosenza · 110 m
A cliff village above the Tyrrhenian Riviera dei Cedri, where the Arco Magno sea arch fronts a cove only reachable on foot or by boat.
Trebisacce
Province: Cosenza · 73 m
A Bronze Age plateau above the Ionian Gulf of Taranto whose name comes from the Greek for small table, with a Byzantine mother church below.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia · 50 m
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Cariati
Province: Cosenza · 76 m
A walled Ionian fishing town on the Saracen Coast, its kilometer of medieval ramparts and eight towers among the most intact in southern Italy.
Praia a Mare
Province: Cosenza · 10 m
A Tyrrhenian beach town in the Gulf of Policastro, between the Pollino National Park and the 33-hectare Isola di Dino just offshore.
Villapiana
Province: Cosenza · 206 m
An Ionian commune on the edge of the Sibari plain, dorato sand at the Lido and Pollino peaks rising twenty kilometers inland.
Isola di Capo Rizzuto
Province: Crotone · 90 m
A promontory on the Ionian coast wrapped by Italy's largest marine reserve, with the Aragonese castle of Le Castella standing on a rock offshore.
Parghelia
Province: Vibo Valentia · 70 m
A 1,300-person village on the Costa degli Dei at 70 meters, four kilometers from Tropea and quieter than its famous neighbour.
Soverato
Province: Catanzaro · 10 m
On the Gulf of Squillace with the white-sand stretch called the Pearl of the Ionian, the wealthiest town per capita in Calabria.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Putignano
Province: Bari
Europe's longest-running carnival — Putignano Carnevale has run continuously since 1394, with 631 years of cartapesta papier-mâché floats, a 26,000-resident Murgia town on the Bari–Lecce plateau, and the Grotta del Trullo karst cave inside the centro.
Pistoia
Province: Pistoia
Italy's nursery capital and the medieval Tuscan rival that gave its name to the pistol — a quietly extraordinary centro storico of zebra-striped Romanesque churches, Andrea della Robbia's polychrome frieze on the Ospedale del Ceppo, and Italy's Capital of Culture 2017, all 30 minutes from Florence by train.
Tropea
Province: Vibo Valentia
Cliff town on a tufa headland over the Tyrrhenian Coast of the Gods, with a Norman monastery on a sea rock.
Caldes
Province: Trento
A scattered Val di Sole commune on the Noce, six hamlets gathered around a thirteenth-century tower-house castle that once belonged to the Thun family.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.