Praia a Mare

For centuries Praia was the seafront of Aieta, the mountain village three hours' walk higher up, and it was in fact called Praja d'Aieta. In 1928 the hamlet became an independent municipality under its present name, and with the same measure the reversal took place: Aieta and neighbouring Tortora, two centres with centuries of autonomy behind them, were suppressed and merged into the newly born municipality. They got their independence back on 18 July 1937. As for the name, the most accepted hypothesis derives it from Plaga Sclavorum, the beach of the Schiavoni, in memory of the traffic in goods and in men that once marked this coast.

The sanctuary stands inside a natural cave, and the story was already told in the sixteenth century by Girolamo Marafioti in his Chronicles of Calabria. In August 1326 a Turkish vessel loaded with merchandise was passing off the island of Dino when it stopped dead, as if by enchantment. The crew blamed the wooden icon of the Virgin that the captain, a Christian, kept in his cabin; he tried to resist, then gave way, but instead of throwing it into the sea he set it on a boulder in the cave on the shore. A young mute shepherd from Aieta found it, ran to the village to announce it and, by speaking, performed the first miracle. The people of Aieta carried the statue up to their mother church, but in the night it returned to its stone altar, and there it has stayed.