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CATANZARO |
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There's plenty of bustle at CATANZARO LIDO , a rather overworked
resort with a handful of swish hotels and eating-places, the first beach
stop for the people of Calabria's regional capital, CATANZARO . If
you're aiming to visit this hilltop city just out of sight of the coast,
regular buses leave from outside the Lido's main train station every
twenty minutes or so (tickets from tabacchi or the ticket office in the
station), and trains on the Cálabro-Lucane line operate hourly from an
anonymous white building up the road. Best of all is the funicular which
climbs to the bottom of the main drag, Corso Mazzini, every thirty
minutes (L2000/¬1.03). Drivers unwilling to cope with the traffic, lack
of signs and one-way systems would do well to park their vehicles at the
Lido.
Despite its fine position, Catanzaro has little innate charm: a crowded,
overdeveloped, traffic-ridden city, it's a useful base for the Sila
Piccola and is within a short ride of some five-star beaches, but is
otherwise best avoided. It has much in common with its northern
neighbour, Cosenza , and perhaps for this reason they share an
implacable rivalry. Both are inland mountain towns within sight of the
Sila range, although Catanzaro also has a view over the sea, from which
frequent strong winds keep the town relatively free of the sticky heat
that can clog Cosenza during the summer months. Both towns have also
been subject to repeated devastations of human and natural causes,
though Catanzaro has suffered the most, being almost entirely demolished
by a 1783 earthquake and robbed of any residual character by postwar
property speculation.
An animated stream of cars and people, Corso Mazzini is the axis around
which lies almost everything that is worth seeing in Catanzaro - though,
to be frank, it doesn't amount to much. Step into the huge
eighteenth-century Baroque church of the Immacolata to see four of the
few remaining examples of the work of the Neapolitan Caterina de
Iuliani: biblical scenes modelled in wax, rather difficult to make out
clearly because they need to be kept away from excessive heat and light.
Behind the town hall on the left of the Corso (heading down), Villa
Trieste holds the Museo Provinciale , most notable for its Greek, Roman
and Byzantine coin collection, though there is also a motley assortment
of local and other southern Italian art (including a canvas signed by
Antonello da Messina). At present, however, the museum is almost
permanently closed for lack of funding, but check it out anyway: if you
can't get in, the tranquil public garden on the ravine's edge makes a
good spot for a breather, the haunt of card-players and couples in
clinches, and with views over one of the two viaducts that tether
Catanzaro to the surrounding hills - much used for suicides, they say,
before the higher viadotto was built on the other side.
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