The name is stone: Petronà comes from the Byzantine Greek Petronè, «of stone». The village stands at nearly nine hundred metres, in the Sila Piccola, inside the national park, and shares with Mesoraca the summit of monte Femminamorta, the third of the Sila Piccola after Gariglione and Scorciavuoi. The Ionian Sea is close by, but you would not say so from here: the altitude and the woods make this stretch of Calabria a mountain country.
The Sila that surrounds it is the Silva Brutia of the Romans, the forest of the Bruttii, and the Latin word may itself come from the Greek hyle, forest. It is also one of the oldest protected areas in Italy: the «old» national park of Calabria dates from 1968, the Sila national park from 2002. From the highest summits, on clear days, you can see the Aspromonte to the south and the Pollino to the north, the Tyrrhenian on one side and the Ionian on the other, and beyond the strait Sicily with Etna and the Aeolian islands.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Petronà
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Petronà, but an easy day trip away.