Grisolia

However you read it, the name of Grisolia speaks of gold: from the Greek Chrousolea or the Latin Chrisena, and it is not merely a metaphor for fertile land, because the metal veins of Monte La Mula have been worked since prehistory for copper, iron and gold. The more reliable sources, though, trace the name back to an igumeno, Papàs Chryselios, who founded the original community in the eleventh century. That same Monte La Mula gives the municipality a record: at one thousand nine hundred and five metres it is the highest point reached by an Italian municipality that also has a stretch of coast.

The old centre is a tangle of alleys, stairs and arches, with the spuorti, covered stretches where the houses lean one against the other, walls of Grisolia stone left unplastered and roofs of clay tiles. On the fifteenth and sixteenth of August the procession of San Rocco passes through them: many women follow barefoot, in a double line, carrying on their heads the caggie, wooden frames stuck with candles and dressed with flowers and ribbons, offered as ex voto, while scented petals are thrown from the windows. The cult took hold between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, after a plague.