Acri

Acri is a sizeable hill town in the Province of Cosenza, perched around 720 metres above sea level where the Sila plateau meets the Crati valley. It's inland Calabria, not the coast, and the landscape—uplands, the Mucone watercourse nearby, a sprawling municipality—shapes a quieter, more rooted kind of visit than the beach towns most travelers associate with the region.

The old centre grew up around a fortified high point, and the Civic Tower, the main surviving piece of the former castle, still marks the town visually. Wander the medieval quarters and you'll find aristocratic palazzi and a notable concentration of churches and former convents—Franciscan, Dominican, Capuchin—left by centuries of feudal and religious life. The Basilica of Sant'Angelo honors Acri's most famous son, the Capuchin preacher canonized in 2017, and pairs with a small museum on his life.

For something unexpected, the 18th-century Palazzo Sanseverino-Falcone now houses MACA, a contemporary art museum built around glass artist Silvio Vigliaturo's work across four floors. The town also nods to its Arbëreshë (Albanian-Italian) neighbors in the Sila Greca area through a local costume museum, and to its literary history through poet Vincenzo Padula.

Food leans upland Calabrian: Sila potatoes, caciocavallo cheese, and squadatialli, a local baked specialty worth seeking out.