Summer in Brancaleone: crystal clear sea and sandy beaches

The sea at Brancaleone is a summer dream within everyone's reach! Brancaleone, in Calabria (RC), boasts a beach that is a true natural jewel.

Set in the ‘’Costa dei Gelsomini‘’ Regional Marine Park, the Brancaleone beach is a precious ecosystem for the protection and reproduction of Caretta Caretta turtles, so much so that it is known as the ‘’Turtle Beach‘’.

Let's discover together the sea of Brancaleone and what to see in Brancaleone Vetus, the medieval village in the hills.

Strolling along Brancaleone's seafront, lined with palm trees and small cafés, we reach the splendid Brancaleone beaches for an unforgettable summer experience! The scenery is pristine, where the jasmine flowers that give the entire coastline its name flourish. Here, Caretta Caretta turtles are welcome, so much so that they nest in the same spot every year and are cared for by a special Sea Turtle Recovery Centre, one of the most important in the Mediterranean. The recovery centre deals with the rescue, care and rehabilitation of specimens found in difficulty due to human activities.

The very fine sand that characterises Brancaleone beach is a soft carpet on which to take long walks and pause in the free stretches, which here are very extensive and give up their natural space to a few equipped establishments. Part of this ecosystem is a dense landscape of Mediterranean scrub, cultivated with olive groves, vineyards and bergamot up to the hill that climbs into the village, where the ruins of Brancaleone Vetus stand. The Brancaleone beach ends at the foot of the Capo Spartivento Lighthouse, one of the lighthouses to visit in Calabria. The Capospartivento beach is one of the most beautiful and unspoilt corners of the coast. 

Brancaleone is also a ‘’literary place‘’, as it was the place of confinement of the writer Cesare Pavese (Strega Prize in 1950 with the novel La bella estate), who served his sentence here, accused of anti-fascism. Pavese's presence in Brancaleone is still witnessed by the ‘’Cesare Pavese‘’ House-Museum, which can be visited on request: inside, the bed, the desk and the books sent to him by his sister have remained as they were at the time, waiting to tell their story.

What to see in Brancaleone? The historic centre, Brancaleone Superiore, is identified with the ruins of ancient Brancaleone Vetus (or Sperlinga), now an Urban Archaeological Park. It is an area suspended between East and West, dotted with small ‘’cave-churches‘’ that preserve within them engravings of Armenian origin, niches and altars testifying to the strong presence of Greek-Oriental monasticism in this part of Calabria. A real ‘’ghost town‘’, which preserves the floor of the ancient Mother Church of the Addolorata and the Archpriest's Church of the Annunziata, built in the 17th century on the remains of the Capuchin Monastery.