Sila Mountains of Calabria

Cool, crisp mountain air – make sure to breathe deeply when you visit Calabria, as the region has the cleanest air in Europe! All of the mountains contribute to this freshness with three major ranges: the Pollino in the north, the Sila in the center and the Aspromonte in the south. As a matter of fact, the Sila Mountains, a vast high plain just above Calabria’s narrowest geographical point, are known as the gran bosco d’Italia, Italy’s great forest.

CALABRIA’S SILA MOUNTAINS

The Sila stretches over three provinces – Cosenza, Crotone and Catanzaro, and is subdivided from north to south in the Sila Greca, the Sila Grande and the Sila Piccola. British novelist George Gissing wrote of the mountain range as:

a vast prospect… a valley broad enough to be called a plain, dotted with white villages, and backed by the mass of mountains which now, as in old time, bear the name of Great Sila…. I stopped the horses to gaze and wonder; gladly I would have stood there for hours…. a noble sight at any time of the day, but most of all when the mists of morning cling about its summits, or when the sunset clothes its broad flanks with purple.

From On the Ionian Sea (1901) by George Gissing

Another British writer, H. V. Morton described the formidable task of crossing the Sila Mountains in the second half of the last century:

Though the distance in a straight line from Rossano to Cosenza on the opposite side of the peninsula is only about thirty miles, by road I should think it must be more than a hundred and thirty of the most alarming mountain roads in the south of Italy. There is nothing as trying even in the Abruzzi. Soon I was winding up and down with a hairpin bend in the road every fifty yards, as I mounted to the Sila Grande, as this part of the six hundred square miles of plateau is called. But ‘plateau’ does not describe this land with its terrific river torrents, dry as a bone in summer, and its mountains, some of which rise 7,000 feet above the sea.

From A Traveller in Southern Italy (1969) by H. V. Morton

SILA FOREST

While seemingly remote to many a reader, these woods have been firmly on the radar of history’s greatest nations, particularly as a source of timber.

The Sila, called Silva by the Romans because of its forests, is of remarkable character and construction. Its masses of granite and gneiss were thousands of years old, geologists tell us, before the rest of Italy emerged from the sea. Ships for the Athenian fleets and for Italian Greeks and Romans and Normans and Spaniards were built of its forests, glorious fragments of which still survive. Aromatic pines of a peculiar variety, the Pinus laricus, very tall and straight, with branches that spread and droop like the cedar of Lebanon, still cover a few of its three hundred and fifty thousand acres.

From Calabria, The First Italy (1939) by Gertrude Slaughter

This pine is a particular variety, known as the “Pino della Sila” – it is found over this whole country, and grows to a height of forty metres with a silvery-grey trunk, exhaling a delicious aromatic fragrance. In youth, especially where the soil is deep, it shoots up prim and demure as a Nuremberg toy; but in old age grows monstrous. High-perched upon some lonely granite boulder, with roots writhing over the bare stone like the arms of an octopus, it sits firm and unmoved, deriding the tempest and flinging fantastic limbs into the air – emblem of tenacity in desolation. From these trees, which in former times must have covered the Sila region, was made the Bruttian pitch mentioned by Strabo and other ancient writers.

From Old Calabria (1915) by Norman Douglas

REFUGE IN THE SILA MOUNTAINS

Before modern roads were paved, the mountainous landscape was impenetrable to outsiders and became a refuge for many.

From the day when Spartacus and his troops took refuge on the Sila, it has been the haunt of refugees and rebels as well as of dreamers and reformers. Its deep valley and forests have harbored many a well-known saint and sinner – Saint Nilus and the anchorites, Joachim of Flora, and famous bandit chiefs, whose descendants are peace-loving citizens of today. The land itself grows less wild and rugged. It is still quiet; a great peace settles over it.

From Calabria, The First Italy (1939) by Gertrude Slaughter

These travel writers of the past found a remote land that inspired their imaginations, a place about which to dream.

Not so long ago it was a haunt of brigands; now there is no risk for the rare traveller who penetrates that wilderness; but he must needs depend upon the hospitality of labourers and shepherds. I dream of sunny glades, never touched, perhaps, by the foot of man since the Greek herdsman wandered there with his sheep or goats.

From On the Ionian Sea (1901) by George Gissing

Not only foreigners, but Italians are fascinated with the Sila Mountains, as well.

These vast expanses of forests, of cliffs, of lakes, have a name full of allure: the Sila, the heart of Calabria. The men who were born and who live there are a generous and strong people, whose hearts remain young, with passions as wild and pure as nature, and a fate that follows the path of the seasons, the sun, the storms. In the solitude and silence of the Sila, the boundary between reality and legend is lost.

From the Film, Il lupo della Sila – The Wolf of the Sila (1949)

FROM THE COAST TO THE MOUNTAINS

Travelers are often surprised with what they find when ascending from the Mediterranean coast – and are rewarded with unexpected visions in these southern mountains.

As I mounted higher into the Sila the olives were left behind, the air became colder and I saw beeches, chestnuts and pines. The wayside shrines had little curtains drawn across them which I do not remember to have seen before in Italy. Some of the roads were lined with red and white striped indication posts to mark the highway during snowstorms. The grass was green. The cows with bells round their necks were grey or faun-coloured. Was I in Switzerland or in the Bavarian Alps? The Italian landscape had been lifted so high into the air that it had ceased to be Italian; it was, to all appearances, Alpine. To lift oneself out of Italy in this way, noting how sensitive vegetation is to every upward mile, is a fascinating experience until one comes, at the Lake of Cecita, into a belt of country that might well be the highlands of Scotland, and even the people are unlike the Italians of the sea coast.

From A Traveller in Southern Italy (1969) by H. V. Morton

CLEANEST AIR IN EUROPE IN THE SILA MOUNTAINS

Poetic descriptions are all well and good, but what of the claim that the Sila Mountains have the cleanest air in Europe? It’s true! Studies financed by the European Union have concluded that there is a place in Calabria with air cleaner than in Norway’s Svalbard Islands at the Polar North.­ This freshest of breaths can be had in the Sila Mountains, precisely in the Tirivolo neighborhood of Zagarise, Province of Catanzaro, at an altitude of 1,800 meters (almost 6,000 feet).

SILA NATIONAL PARK

This mountainous area of 74,000 hectares, encompassing 21 communities, numerous rivers, three artificial lakes and a rich flora and fauna, has been administratively organized into a national park, which hosts visitors from near and far who enjoy outdoor activities in all seasons as well as the cultural aspects and artisanal products of the land and its people that flourish in this special landscape.

Long silences are broken only by the sound of distant cowbells or the bubbling of water close at hand. Except for its woods it is one great pasture, where herds are brought up from the plains to graze through the summer months as in the days when Virgil likened the contest between Aeneas and Turnus to a conflict of bulls on the Sila.

From Calabria, The First Italy (1939) by Gertrude Slaughter

Breathe the Sila’s fresh mountain air on my Calabria Cultural and Traditions and Food of Calabria Tours!

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Join me on one of my comprehensive, small group tours of Calabria or Basilicata. Immerse yourself in the beauty, taste the incredible food, and soak up the culture first hand! See the detailed itineraries on the Calabria Tour page and Basilicata Tour page.

Read all about the fascinating Calabrian region in my book Calabria: The Other Italy, described by Publisher’s Weekly as “an intoxicating blend of humor, joy, and reverence for this area in Italy’s deep south,” and explore Calabria’s northern neighbor in my book Basilicata: Authentic Italy, “recommended to readers who appreciate all things Italian” by the Library Journal.

Follow me on social media: Basilicata Facebook page, Calabria: The Other Italy’s Facebook page, Karen’s Instagram and Karen’s Twitter for beautiful pictures and information.
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CALABRIA: The Other Italy and BASILICATA: Authentic Italy make great gifts!