Maierà

Maierà stands at three hundred and sixty metres on the left flank of a deep ravine, cut by the Vaccuta stream, and is built almost into the rock. What it is known for, though, is what lies in front of it: a gorge that separates it from the comune of Grisolia, so near that people can talk across it and so far that to get there you must go round. The official explanation is geological; the one told in the village is another, and it says that the two places were separated by the will of God, to put an end to the quarrel between a young man from Maierà and one from Grisolia, both in love with the same girl. On the name too there are two versions: it would come from the Hebrew mə'ārāh, which means cave — and caves, here, are many — or from the Greek machairas, that is knife-maker.

The comune is part of the national park of the Pollino and looks out over the riviera dei Cedri. In the lanes of the old centre there are works of contemporary art by various artists, put there on purpose so that the past should meet the present; and in the ducal palace there is something that exists nowhere else: the Chilli Museum, the first and only one in the world devoted to this spice, born of the Italian Chilli Academy together with the comune. Inside, six thousand years of the chilli's history are told and varieties from all over the world are shown, along with the objects tied to what here they call the red gold. The churches of the village are Santa Maria del Piano, Santa Maria del Casale, the Madonna del Carmine and San Pietro.