.Santa Severina, the "stone ship"
Distance: 30 km from Crotone
Total time by bus: 60 min.
Total inhabitants: approx. 2,300.
It can be visited in 3 hours
Known as the "Stone Ship" because it clings to a tuff buttress that overlooks the Neto river valley, the town of Santa Severina, listed among "Italy's prettiest towns" and renowned for the wonderful Carrafa castle-fortress.
The manor, composed by a 15th-century square keep with four angular towers and the same number of jutting bastions. It is surrounded by a moat and encircling walls, with a section that offers examples different types of crenellation (Byzantine, Norman and Svevian) and the structural and defensive modifications the fortress underwent over time.
Even the archaeological museum housed within chronicles the historical evolutions of the castle and the town, while in the elegant salons there are stuccoes and paintings by Francesco Giordano.
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From the 9th to the 11th century the town lived its period of greatest splendour: the Baptistery, which is accessed via a little door in the Cathedral, is the oldest Byzantine monument in Calabria: built between the 8th and the 9th century on a circular base with a Greek cross, it was originally a martyry and only later did it become a baptistery.
The Church of Saint Filomena, an interesting example of Byzantine-Norman architecture, is an 11th century construction with a small dome decorated with little columns (a typical pattern in Armenian buildings. What was once the Church of the Pozzoleo has been restored, and today holds the crypt of Saint Filomena. It once held a beautiful holy-water font made of Parian marble, now in the interesting Diocesan Museum, situated alongside of the cathedral.
The Carrafa castle can be the magnificent location for cocktails and tasting of local products, as well as for any kind of event such concerts and stage shows.
By Gruppo di Marketing Territoriale - March 2010.
